What is 'Slam the Boards'?

Answer 1

Slam the Boards is a grass-roots attempt to have reference librarians participate in providing answers on various "answer boards," such as WikiAnswers, Yahoo Answers, AskVille, Answerbag, etc. The aim is twofold:

1) To encounter users beyond the walls of the library and the bounds of our library websites and chat services and provide well-sourced, dependable answers to questions that lend themselves to factual answers, referrals, etc.

2) To make users of those services aware that librarians and libraries can be valuable source not just for books, videos, etc., but also for mediated answers to questions and referral to appropriate sources and organizations. This is mainly done by clearly identifying the person who answers the question as a librarian and referring readers back to a site that can help them locate their own library resources. Recent studies have shown that library users are well-aware of libraries' content holdings, but are almost completely unaware of our 100-year tradition of providing reference services.

(NOTE)

To 'Slam the boards' can also mean to slam two hardcover books together forcefully in order to shift dust from off of them.