When you work on a question, notice the information about the patron, the transcript history so far. Any information the patron submitted with the question and the transcript of the conversation so far will be included.

Look for comments from other librarians. Does someone say they are working on it already? If so, you should contribute by adding comments, not by sending an answer yourself.

Look also for tags with people's names in them. These may also indicate that a particular person is working on them.

Add lots of comments and tags yourself to avoid confusion.

Organize questions by adding tags to them. Scroll down to the sections labeled All Tags and My tags.

To add a tag, enter words in the 'My tags' box, separated by commas, and either hit 'return' or click 'Add'.

Tags may only be removed by the person that created them. If some tags appear larger than others, more than one person used that tag.

You are free to tag questions with whatever terms you see fit - subjects, sources, libraries, or whatever you want.

One convention we've discussed so far is that you may tag a question with your name to indicate that you are working on it. Tag a question with the name of a library to indicate that you think that library should work on it.

A good way to contribute to answers without doing the answering is to leave comments on questions.

For example, if you start to work on a question, you might just comment what sources you checked. If you are working on something but are stumped, other librarians can suggest sources or methods.

To send an answer or request clarification from the patron, enter your answer in the big text box and choose either 'Answer', 'Request Clarification' or 'Save as a Draft'.

If the text box is not empty, someone has saved a draft of an answer already.

If you choose 'Answer', drafts will be deleted, the answer will be sent, and the question's status will be set to 'closed'.

The message to the patron will use a template based on www.oregonlibraries.net/templates/answer.

If you choose 'Request clarification', a message will be sent to the patron but drafts and the question's status will remain.

The message to the patron will use a template based on www.oregonlibraries.net/templates/clarification.

If you choose 'Close without sending an answer’ the status of the question will change to closed. You may want to just close a question if it is a duplicate question or if it appears that the question was answered in chat and it was given a followup resolution code in error.

If you choose 'Save as a draft', nothing is sent to the patron and the question's status isn't changed. It doesn't hurt to save drafts often while you are working on an involved question.

If more than one person is working on a question at the same time, both answers or clarifications are sent. However, only the most recent draft will display in the text box.

If you choose 'Refer outside of L-net', an e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address you specify with the text of the original question and your message in the 'Answer' field.

The referral will use a template based on www.oregonlibraries.net/templates/referrral.

When that person replies, you can send the answer to the patron.

By default, you will be notified when the patron or referee replies to your question, answer or clarification. You may uncheck the box to receive this notification.