Know It Now...or not

This is a reflection of my experience when I repeated my Tampa travel research question using the Know It Now 24/7 service.
Here is the very brief transcript of my exchange with an online librarian:

Guest has joined the room
Kathi has joined the room
Guest: Hello, I would like to know where I could find some good resources to find airfare and car rental from Dayton, Ohio to Tampa, FL. Do you have any suggestions?
Guest: (the car rental would just be in Tampa)
Kathi: i can't give you recommendations, but you can just search
Kathi: for "cheap flights" in google
Kathi: try the tampa airport website
Kathi: they may have a link to car rentals
Kathi: if you like I can find that site
Guest: ok
Kathi: ok, let me look
Kathi: try this link (i'm not sure it will work) http://maps.google.com/maps?rls=com.microsoft:en-us&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=car+rental+tampa&fb=1&gl=us&hq=car+rental&hnear=Tampa,+FL&view=text&ei=k6lQTI_vPIHlnAfgnYGQBw&sa=X&oi=local_group&ct=more-results&resnum=1&ved=0CD8QtQMwAA
Kathi: should be car rental near tampa
Guest: ok
Guest: thanks
Kathi: your welcome
Kathi has left the room
Guest has left the room

Response to Research Request Using KnowItNow Service:
I do realize that a librarian’s job is not to be a travel agent, but overall, I was a little disappointed with this reference transaction. Even though I found many of the same sites she recommends through my own search, I was not really impressed by the librarian's level of professionalism. There were several things I would have done if I were the librarian answering this question:
I would have:
-asked for more information from the patron to make sure I understood the question correctly and could answer it fully.
-used uppercase letters in my responses as would be expected from a professional .
-provided the promised website for the Tampa airport.
-known the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re.’
-asked the patron if there was anything else I could assist them with, rather than just leave the room without even saying goodbye.

I think these little details caught my attention because I have used this service before and received much more helpful and professional assistance from another librarian. Maybe I am just being picky, or maybe the research question I asked just didn’t promote a detailed response. What do you think?

Later this morning I will be repeating this search using another service, the Ask a Librarian service from Kent. I actually tried to do this the other day, but even though the librarian was online, they had an away message posted and never responded to my query. Hopefully I will have better luck today getting in touch with a Kent librarian. Stay tuned for a comparison of these two handy online reference services!


...


Ok, I just "spoke" with a librarian at Kent. Here is how it went:

meeboguest99368: Hello, I would like to know where I could find some good resources to find airfare and car rental from Dayton, Ohio to Tampa, FL. Do you have any suggestions? (the car rental would just be in Tampa) Thanks!

imaksulibrarian: i would suggest one of the travel sites like expedia or orbitz

imaksulibrarian: i do not recommend either

imaksulibrarian: over the other

meeboguest99368: ok, thanks. Do you know whether they handle both airfare and car rental?

meeboguest99368: My husband has an interview there and we don't know anything about the Tampa area and were just trying to get some info.

imaksulibrarian: they do

imaksulibrarian: at least expedia does

meeboguest99368: ok. Do you have any other recommendations for my search?

imaksulibrarian: i know expedia os pretty straight forward

imaksulibrarian: you enter the dates

imaksulibrarian: and the starting location/destination

imaksulibrarian: there are check boxes for airfare and rental cars

meeboguest99368: Ok, I'll give it a shot. Do you know any good places to get information about Tampa?

imaksulibrarian: like things to do?

imaksulibrarian: that sort of thing?

imaksulibrarian: restaurants?

imaksulibrarian: i always recommend the visitor's bureaus

meeboguest99368: Well we might move there if he gets the job--so I was thinking more like maps, info about MacDill AFB, housing...

imaksulibrarian: here is the site for tampas

imaksulibrarian: http://www.visittampabay.com/

meeboguest99368: ok great, thank you so much

imaksulibrarian: np

imaksulibrarian: good luck

meeboguest99368: Thanks! Have a good day!

imaksulibrarian: you too

Response to Research Request Using Kent's Ask A Librarian Service:

I think this reference experience went much better than the one shown previously. The Kent librarian gave me some specific websites, rather than just telling me to do a Google search. I noticed that both librarians made it a point to say that they couldn't recommend one commercial service over any others and I appreciated that lack of bias. I also liked this conversation better because the librarian actually asked a couple of probing questions to find out what I was looking for. Both, however seemed to depend on prompting from me rather than their own initiative to narrow down my search.

One thing that really bothers me about both interactions is the lack of formal writing. If we expect people to regard librarianship as a profession, then we need to make sure that we are representing ourselves in a professional manner. Both of these librarians used lowercase in their messages, sent unfinished sentences, and had multiple typos. It made me wonder whether they were actual librarians or some unqualified part-time shelver they had placed at the helm. I know libraries are struggling to go on with smaller staffs and budgets, but if I wanted to talk to an informal college buddy on IM, I'd do just that. When I contact a professional, I want professional service, and I think most patrons feel the same way.

Your thoughts?

Bon Voyage! My Information Awareness Report

Recently, my husband received an offer to interview for a job in Tampa, Florida. Not being frequent travelers, nor experts of the Tampa area, we didn’t have a solid grasp of where to find information that would enable us to make a good decision regarding reasonable airfare and car rental for his trip. We also wanted to know as much as we could find out about the nature of the job itself. The following is a description of how we conducted our search for this information.

We began our quest online. My husband focused on finding information about the particular position for which he was interviewing as well as general information about the hiring company. He found a lot of useful information on the company’s website that told him about their current work and plans for the future. My husband also spoke with my dad, who works in a similar field. He was able to give him more details concerning hiring practices and policies. My dad also suggested booking the car rental through USAA, of which we are members and through which we can receive discounts.

My job was to figure out travel arrangements. I started by thinking about where I had heard reliable travel information in the past. We frequently listen to Clark Howard on the radio. He is a consumer advocate who works out of Atlanta, Georgia and frequently talks about travel deals on his show. I went to his website and looked at his page regarding travel. Most of the information was specific to Atlanta, but it did point me in the direction of Travelocity, a free, online travel agency that allows for easy comparison between deals on airfare, car rental and hotel accommodations. By plugging the address of the interview location into Google Maps and looking at the map, I determined that the closest airport was Tampa International. Travelocity allowed me to plug in the date of his trip and compare flight times, carriers and prices. I selected the criteria that best met his needs, booked a flight and moved on to car rental.

Through USAA’s website, I learned that we could receive discounts through the rental car companies Avis, Hertz and Budget. I then went to the Tampa International Airport website and determined that all three car companies had services available there. I chose Avis, because they offered USAA members the largest discount and then sent the information to my husband so he could sign up for a car.

After booking all of the travel arrangements, I was talking to my dad again and he asked which car company we had ended up selecting. When I told him Avis and the price, he was surprised. He told me that Avis is typically the most expensive of the three companies. After talking further, I realized that I had never compared rates between the car companies, I had just selected Avis because they gave the biggest discount to USAA members. It turns out that they have the biggest discount because they have the biggest initial price! After learning this, we decided that for future car rentals, we will need to remember to compare rates between the companies in order to choose the most reasonably priced car rental company.

Search terms and Questions:

In my search, I relied on Google to find the locations of all of the websites I used. In the Google Search box, I typed:

Clark Howard (www.clarkhoward.com)

Travelocity (www.travelocity.com)

Google Maps (www.maps.google.com)

USAA (www.usaa.com)

Tampa International Airport (www.tampaairport.com)

Avis (www.avis.com)

Hertz (www.hertz.com)

Budget (www.budgetcarrental.com)

Questions I asked:

To my husband…

What is the address of the interview location?

What day and time are the interview?

What times do you want to arrive/depart Tampa?

To myself…

Who can I ask about travel?

What websites would have the information about airfare, car rental, and maps?

To my dad…

Do you have any tips for booking airfare or rental cars?

Where do I look on the USAA website for information about discount car rental offers?

Searching Satisfaction:

I was pretty satisfied with my search because it allowed me to find what I needed. Knowing what I know now about the car rental prices, I would remember to compare between the companies next time so that I could get an even better deal. I would have gone back to do this for this search process, but by the time we compared prices, the date of the trip was closer and prices for car rental from all of the companies had gone up higher than what my husband had booked.

I felt confident in my information sources because I know that Clark Howard is a reliable consumer advocate. I have listened to him assist other people on the radio and on TV and am confident in his strong reputation in the financial world. I also knew my dad was a good resource because he has been in the same field as my husband for his entire career and knows a lot about the different agencies within this field.

I believe that my information gap has been filled overall because I was able to get the amount of information needed to accomplish my goal of booking airfare and travel for my husband’s trip. The search has ended because we are confident in our results and are also out of time, (his trip is this week).

What I Learned About Myself:

Like some others in our class have mentioned, I didn’t realize how much I relied on Google to search for information. Even though I had a clear idea of the website I was looking for, I didn’t necessarily know the exact address, so it was helpful to be able to search for it in Google. Something else I learned about myself is that I think I need to take breaks amidst long searches. I think that by the time I reached the car rental part of my search, I was just ready to be done with it. This feeling may have easily contributed to my oversight in not comparing the car rental companies against each other. I think this is something good to keep in mind when helping library patrons, because sometimes too much information, even good information, can be overwhelming. Anything we as librarians can do to cut down search time, whether it be through web quests or pathfinders, etc., would be very beneficial to the end-user.

Class Correlation:

One element of my search made me recall our class discussion about Adler and the arbitrariness of alphabetization. The car companies in my search were listed alphabetically: Avis, Budget, and then Hertz. Though I did actually read the amounts of discounts for each to make my decision, I do wonder to what extent I and others visiting the USAA site might be influenced to choose Avis just because it is listed first.

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