e-reference abuse

[Wells, Jean]

Apologies in advance if this topic has been discussed.  I searched the
archives but found nothing that fit.

We instituted Ask-A-Librarian services (form sending e-mail to a
reference librarian..usually me) about 2 years ago.  It got very little
use until last fall when, in a revision of the home page, a button was
placed prominently on the Dacus Web page.  Since then, I've gone from
about 1 or 2 a month to about 20 questions each month.  Most are from
our students, a few have been from other folks looking for information
about the school or the town.  However, there is one particular faculty
member who sends in a question of some sort every week.  Lately, I've
been bombarded with requests for help verifying citations for his
doctoral dissertation (at least 10 last week!)

Anyone else have any problems of this sort?  We're contemplating drawing
up a formal policy with a limit of how many questions per person we'll
answer, but I hate to do that if there's only going to be one
troublemaker who can be dealt with individually.

Please reply to me directly if this isn't exactly an appropriate topic
for this list.

thanks in advance, 

Jean Wells
wellsj at winthrop.edu
Reference Librarian
Dacus Library, Winthrop University
Rock Hill, SC