[Web4lib] "Ask a Librarian" role: popularity, questions, benefits, costs

[Brian Stubbs]

As a non-librarian staff-member(who answers Ask-A-Librarian questions), 
I can say that it's a great supplement to our existing informational 
services.  Ask-A-Librarian services seem to be able to either increase 
or decrease the workload of library personnel, depending on how much the 
service is used and how well the flow of questions and answers are 
managed.

The system at Rutgers University used to make use of listservs; if you 
were on the Ask-A-Librarian team, you'd get every single AAL question, 
every day, regardless of whether it was your assigned day to answer 
questions.  Even if it was your day to answer questions, you'd still 
have to open and read every email, to determine if the question fell 
within your area of expertise to answer (Reference/Research, Archives, 
Circulation, User Privileges, Interlibrary Loan, etc.).  Because of 
this, some questions could get double-answered, while others could fall 
through the cracks.  This system was fine when the service was 
introduced, but had difficulties scaling up as more people began to use 
our Ask-A-Librarian online resource.

Last year, our AAL coordinator and web development staff teamed up to 
create a web portal for managing our AAL questions.  Each person on the 
AAL team has an account, and simply goes to a website to sign in.  Once 
signed in, they can " View Open Requests", "View Claimed Requests" and 
"View Completed Requests".  Open requests are shown in truncated form, 
with the patron's name, subject line, and first line or two of their 
question.  This usually makes it possible to determine if the question 
falls within our sphere.  Questions are checked off, then "Claimed". 
Once claimed, a question is tied to a particular librarian/staff until a 
reply has been sent.  The portal includes macros to fill in frequently 
used answers, and also sends a copy of our reply back to our staff email 
address.  Because questions stay in "Open Requests" until they are 
claimed, and in "Claimed Requests" until they are answered, it is now 
much easier to do clean-up on unanswered questions.  Also, because 
requests are now claimed on a question-by-question basis, duplicate 
(perhaps contradictory!) answers are rare.  Finally, the web portal 
allows our coordinator to track our AAL statistics; Number of requests, 
speed of responses, percent increase/decrease, etc.  This lets us see, 
in more concrete terms, where our successes are with the program and 
where perhaps we can improve further.

The difference with the new web-managed site has been amazing.  It 
reduces the amount of excess mail in each team member's inbox, and 
allows us to much more efficiently answer the questions that our patrons 
ask us.  Because our AAL submission is also via a webform, linked from 
our libraries home page, we are also frequently fielding questions from 
faraway patrons who otherwise would have to travel here, or pay for 
long-distance phone charges AND calculate to make certain that they are 
calling during business hours.

Best of luck with your article.

Richard Wiggins wrote:
> Dear Web4libers,
>  An old friend writes a column on computing for AARP. He's doing a piece on
> "Ask a Librarian" services. Gabe is a thoughtful fellow and will treat your
> thoughts and remarks with care.
>  Here is his author's query:
>  Rich, thanks for forwarding this to the list you suggested.
> 
> I'm writing an article for AARP's Computers and technology Web site,
> http://www.aarp.org/computers, about the blossoming "Ask a librarian" services
> popping up everywhere. The services seem great, comprehensive, free, and
> very useful.
> 
> I'm chatting with a couple very helpful librarians about this; I thought
> getting comments from more people would broaden my perspective.
> 
> So I'm interested in hearing from the library/librarian community on this --
> what's led/leading to its popularity, the sort of questions people pose,
> whether it increases/decreases librarian workload, how libraries deal with
> questions from people outside their service area, how it's supported
> financially, and (especially) any tips for people to use it effectively?
> Also, do you know of articles published on the service?
> 
> Thanks...
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/

-- 
Brian Stubbs
Supervisor II, Alexander Library
Access Services Dept, Rutgers University Libraries