Thing 34: Is This Our Competion? Online Answer Sites

Online Reference Sites
http://www.distancedegrees.com/2008/lose-your-wikipedia-crutch-100-places-to-go-for-good-answers-online/

"The role of the 2.0 librarian is no longer just that of information professional, but also that of someone who is going to make the customer’s experience a good one. It doesn’t matter whether that “experience” is real or virtual—they combine good information skills with those of a caring ambassador. Additionally, the 2.0 librarian recognizes that things change, are changing and will continue to change." Laura Solomon, Cleveland Public Library


Stephen Abram Quotes - "Evolution to Revolution to Chaos?
Reference in Transition" article, Sept 08
http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep08/Abram.shtml

"We need to understand, and understand deeply, the role of the library in our end-users’ lives, work, research, and play. This is critical to our long-term success, and failure is not an option...."
"Now we just have to reintroduce ourselves into every aspect of the virtual world. That means focusing our staffing balance from the backroom to the front room; investing our technology decisions in ones which meet the needs of the end user."
" Can we partner with all providers in the information space to create a one-stop solution? Will we offer a one-stop solution of computing help, training, social interaction, circulation, education, and research in the reference space?...Can we elegantly blend the physical commons with the virtual commons?"
"This scenario depends on understanding the potential in personal devices — laptops, smartphones, PDAs — to dominate as the device. When this happens (if it doesn’t already in your environment), every user becomes a distance user and every user should potentially have all the information and help they may require in their pocket. Can we be there too? Such emerging service technologies such as micro-blogging, Twitter, text messaging, social networking, tagging, and digital phones with advanced web features offer great opportunities for us to be at the point of every user’s need. Check out the Seattle Public Library’s beam-me-up devices!"
"Librarians 2.0 are those who understand the wisdom of crowds and the real roles and impacts of the blogosphere, web syndicasphere, and wikisphere. Librarians 2.0 understand that the magic sauce of Amazon lies in its recommendations and the social interactions of readers."
"Wisdom of crowds - mine behavioral touchstones to determine how best to predict user needs, as well as to allow end users and cardholders to share their experiences and patterns."
"Those of us who prepare for an emerging new world balance of personal service — virtual, in-person, and computer-mediated — will be better prepared than those who wait and see."
"The best way to discover our future is to invent it ourselves."

QUESTION AND ANSWER SITES
Question and answer (Q&A) sites such as Yahoo! Answers are places where users ask questions and others answer them.

The most-visited website in the Questions and Answers category is Yahoo Answers (answers.yahoo.com).

“The popularity of user-generated media has helped to establish a category for social knowledge where consumers can obtain answers from a single aggregated source developed through others’ asking similar questions.”
http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/question-answer-site-visits-up-118-yahoo-answers-is-clear-leader-3891/hitwise-question-answer-sites-top-5-march-2008jpg/

Predictors of answer quality in online Q&A sites
A Q&A site's community of users contributes to its success. Yahoo! Answers, a Q&A site where anybody can answer questions, outperformed sites that depend on specific individuals to answer questions, such as library reference services.
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1357054.1357191

Slam the Boards - Librarians--Ask Us, We Answer!
Librarians invade the various Web answer board sites such as Yahoo! Answers, Amazon’s Askville, The Wikipedia Reference Desk, and others—answering as many questions as they can using authoritative sources.

Blog Prompt
Why are these sites so popular? There is quick response time and they are anonymous.