Some tips of the week for staffing Ask-WA: Washington’s Statewide Virtual Reference Cooperative.
Tip #1: No such thing as anonymous follow-up
Please make sure that there is a way for the patron’s library (even if that is you) to follow-up before you close a session and before you code for follow-up. Even when patrons submit an email address with their question, it is worth checking to make sure that is the correct address at which they would like to be contacted. Many patrons, especially those coming through the Qwidget, do not submit their email addresses at all when they ask their questions. If you are planning on coding a question for follow-up, ask the patron for their email address before the session ends so that follow-up will, in fact, be possible.
Tip #2: Don’t let your descriptive nature get the best of you
At the end of a session you have the opportunity to add descriptive codes. This is like cataloguing for questions, and something about it calls out to your inner librarian nature. I know, I feel it too, like a siren’s call saying “Come organize me.” The thing is, you should really only add descriptive codes to questions from YOUR patrons. Every library uses different descriptive codes differently, and it is up to the patron’s library, every time, to decide which codes are appropriate. You may, of course, continue to add descriptive codes for sessions from your own patrons. To fill the chasm left by not describing other sessions, I recommend taking up water colors, or perhaps writing some nice haiku.
Tip #3: “I need closure!”
What goes for tip #2 goes for tip #3 as well; please don’t close questions on your question list unless they are questions from YOUR patrons. By closing them you are hindering that patron’s library’s question review process. I know, I know, you can’t stand the clutter and really, really want to keep things tidy and neat. Fear not, for you can simply make it so that those finished sessions from other patron’s libraries no longer show up in your libraries “Active” questions list. QuestionPoint explains how over on their blog (section 1.1): http://questionpoint.blogs.com/questionpoint_247_referen/2007/09/maintenance-ins.html.
Now you’ll just have to figure out what to do with all that extra space!
If you have any thoughts or questions, please feel free to discuss them on the Ask-WA email list, leave some comments, or you can always shoot me an email. I’ll get back to you just as soon as I finish this latest lyric poem on the life and death of the reference interview.
