Week 8: Answer boards and social searching

I first heard of "Slam the Boards" last year and thought at the time it seemed like a really smart and proactive move for librarians to be involved. I think our experience with Ask Now shows that clients do want to interact with us online and I think we need to factor Answer Boards in context of both a service and a marketing exercise - pointing people back to libraries.

I wonder if we're beginning to see a trend that information is valuable because it's accessible and fast (point of need) rather than authoritative that might be important. Do we know what our clients value about information? Do our clients have diverging opinions on this issue?