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WNYLRC Webinar: Boost Your Library’s Customer Service with Virtual Chat Reference
June 19, 2020 @ 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EDT
About the Webinar:
Whether we are working from home during a pandemic or helping patrons from our offices and reference desks, virtual reference is an important aspect of the service we provide to our communities. Please join UB librarians Kim Plassche and Jill Hackenberg as they share chat reference tips for newcomers and veteran chatters. Learn techniques to help you deliver excellent customer service including creating your own canned messages for frequent questions, finding primary sources online, working with patrons from outside your community and more!
Registrants will receive the link to the webinar one day prior to the presentation.
About the Presenters:
Jill Hackenberg has coordinated Instant Librarian, the UB Libraries’ chat reference service since 2000. She is also the Computer Science subject librarian at UB. An area of research interest for Jill has been the examination of the group of MLS degree holders who work as Sci-Tech librarians, how they got to be in their professional positions and whether they brought any science background with them to their jobs. She previously worked as a science librarian at the University of Houston Libraries (TX). She has a keen interest in geology and has accumulated an extensive collection of rocks and minerals. These were acquired through travel, museum shops, Gem and Mineral trade shows, serendipitous discovery, and gifts. There are over 200 items in her collection. Amateur astronomy, which she’s pursued for over 30 years, is another hobby of hers, as is researching her family tree and ancestry.
Kim Plassche conducts chat reference as part of her role as the Map Librarian and liaison to Geography at the University at Buffalo. Prior to joining the University at Buffalo Libraries, she worked in public and corporate libraries in reference, research and management roles. In addition to working chat for local public libraries, Kim has worked for the company Chatstaff, providing virtual reference to more than 90 public and academic libraries in the United States and Australia. Kim holds a BS in Environmental Science and an MLS, both awarded by the UB. When she isn’t working, Kim is home with her husband (also a librarian), infant daughter, stepdaughter and two lazy cats.
