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To: DCMI Advisory Board and Usage Board Dear all, At the Florence Advisory Board meeting, Diane Hillmann and Stuart Sutton proposed to set up an "AskDCMI" service. This Q&A service to our community would replace the rather basic feedback mechanism that we have now. Based on the enthusiastic response in Florence to this suggestion, Diane and Stuart have proceeded to set up the implementation, using the virtual reference infrastructure developed by the Information Institute of Syracuse as part of the Virtual Reference Desk project. The URL of ASkDCMI is: http://askdcmi.askvrd.org/. We are planning to go live with the service in early April. In the coming days, we will add more links and documents. As this service depends on the efforts of experts to answer the questions from the community, I am inviting you to register as an expert. As a member of the Usage Board and/or Advisory Board, you are one of the leading experts in this area and we would really appreciate it if you were to share your knowledge and experience with the DCMI community. To give you an impression of expected workload, my statistics show that we have received some 30 questions since 1 January 2003; in 2002, there were about 300 in the whole year -- so if we have a reasonable amount of experts, you may expect maybe two or three questions per month at most. The good thing about the service is that answers to questions will be available for searching so we only need to answer them once. Diane is so kind to manage the process and keep an eye on the orderly conduct of people asking questions (and of experts, no doubt!). If you are willing to be an expert for AskDCMI, please do the following: 1. Go to http://askdcmi.askvrd.org/ 2. Click on the EXPERTS tab, and click on the link to register 3. Fill in the form, making sure that you choose at least one (preferably more) audiences and categories that reflect your expertise. Remember, the categories are designed to match questions with appropriate experts. There will be overlap and you don't have to answer all questions in those categories. 4. The credentials/bio will appear after your answers (like a sig file) but should be brief and understandable by a general audience 5. When finished with the form, read: http://askdcmi.askvrd.org/services/askdcmi/expert_tips.asp You may want to do the following to get a feeling for the service: 1. Go back to home page 2. Click on "ask a question" 3. Register AGAIN as user (the form is a bit different) 4. Ask a question (preferably one that needs an answer and has not been addressed in a FAQ or on AskDCMI) If you have any questions or difficulties, please contact Diane ([log in to unmask]). Makx. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Makx Dekkers e-mail: [log in to unmask] tel: +352 2636 0150 fax: +352 2636 0151 GSM: +352 021 199910