KnowBot: A Tool to Manage Reference and Beyond
Sarah Park, Northwest Missouri State University, gopark AT nwmissouri.edu
Hong Gyu Han, Northwest Missouri State University, hanwiz AT nwmissouri.edu
Lori Mardis, Northwest Missouri State University, lmardis AT nwmissouri.edu
Northwest Missouri State University has developed and used RefPole for collecting and analyzing reference statistics since 2005. RefPole was a tool to answer librarians’ needs to manage reference statistics and knowledge among librarians. It was an analysis tool for the library leaders to make decisions on library operations. RefPole was adequate for the internal use; however, it was developed for local access which keeps the collective reference knowledge from being shared beyond the desktop and from being accessed by students and faculty.
In 2011, responding to growing internal and external need, the library has developed a web based knowledge base management system, KnowBot, in Ruby on Rail. KnowBot offers public searching, rating, cloud tagging, librarian, and reporting interfaces. With the additional public interfaces, it also extended reference services 24/7. Librarians can record responses to questions with graphics and multimedia. The reporting interface features not only the simple transactional data, but it also exhibits multi-dimensional analytic tool in real time.
See the public interface at http://knowbot.owenslibrary.org/
