Librarians head to MySpace

Marco Island students won't have to leave their house for help on a term paper or homework assignment, thanks to a program created by the Tampa Bay Library Consortium. And instead of calling up dozens of Web sites to figure out how to start that paper, students will simply need to pull up their MySpace page and ask a friend; a friendly librarian that is.

The Tampa Bay Library Consortium has turned to MySpace to help students through its Ask a Librarian program.

Several Collier County libraries and universities take part in the program, said Diana Sachs-Silveira, the virtual reference manager for the Tampa Bay Library Consortium. The Collier County Public Library, as well as Ave Maria University, International College and Edison College have teamed up with the organization to help students of every age have better access to library resources, Sachs-Silveira said.

"We get questions dealing with everything from 'I don't know how to start this term paper' to 'how old is Prince,' Sachs-Silveira said. "I have heard it all."

Since joining the program about a year ago, Bob Verbesey, director of library services at Ave Maria University, said the school has received a limited number of inquiries. But most of those inquiries deal with what the library staff specializes in — theology.

"We do get a lot of inquiries about theology and philosophy," Verbesey said. "I would say about 50 percent of our questions are related to God."

Verbesey said his librarians don't field a lot of questions from Ave Maria students, mainly because students live on campus and have access to the school's library.

Sachs-Silveira said students often use the program when they don't have access to their libraries.

"A lot of our users are from high school and about a third of our users are from college," she said. "We primarily attract students."

Peter Van Leeuwen, the distance education librarian for International College in North Naples, said his school has been participating in the program since November 2003.

"(Ask a Librarian) enables our students to have another option to have their reference questions answered in a very timely manner," Van Leeuwen said by e-mail Thursday. "Most of our students are adult learners, working full-time, with families, and their library research is usually in the evening or weekends. We try to accommodate their research needs the best we can, and Ask a Librarian provides one of those tools."

According to a spokeswoman for the Collier County school district, they have a list of online references on their Web site for students to use when looking for online resources. Ask a Librarian is a link on the district's Web site.

In February, Sachs-Silveira said the organization had about 1,100 e-mail transactions and about 2,800 live chat questions.

"Ask a Librarian has proven to be an invaluable for our students," Van Leeuwen said.

Sachs-Silveira said the decision to use MySpace came after realizing how many young adults use the social networking site.

"What better way to reach students is there than to go where they're all at," she said.

Students without a MySpace page can link to Ask a Librarian by visiting the Collier County public library's Web site, though, Sachs-Silveira said.

The program, which is free to use, is open seven days a week.

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Ask a Liberian

Have a question you need answered right now? Ask a Librarian, a resource program based out of the Tampa Bay Library Consortium, may be able to help.

Ask a Librarian is available from 10 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturdays.

Ask a Liberian at www.askalibrarian.org or on MySpace at www.myspace.com/askalibrarianfl.