Working with a question

When you work on a question, notice the information about the patron and 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 at the bottom of the record. 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 the question.

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.

A tag cloud is at http://www.oregonlibraries.net/ask/cloud and includes all tags given to questions, open and closed.

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

To assign a question to a specific library, either your own or another L-net partner library, use the 'library tag' drop-down menu to select a library.  If you don't see your desired library listed, choose 'L-net staff' and leave a comment. Clear the 'library tag' by choosing 'any library'.  To remove a library tag, choose 'any library'.

A good way to contribute to answers without doing the answering is to leave Staff 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' or 'Request Clarification'.

You may also save a partial answer by selecting 'Draft'.  If the text box is not empty, someone else 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 the question's status will remain open.

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

If you choose '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 'Referral', 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 recipient of the referral will not receive a copy of the chat transcript or see the patron's email address.

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

When that person replies, you will need to copy and paste the answer into the answer box. You may also need to edit the response since librarians often phrase answers differently when they are speaking to one another than they do when they are speaking to a patron. When your answer is ready to go, click 'Send message' to send the answer to the patron.

By default, you will be notified when the patron or referee replies to your clarification, answer, note or referral. You may unsubscribe from a question if you would not like to receive this notification.

If you choose ‘Note’ you can send a message to the patron while leaving the status of the question open. You might want to send a note if you have a very difficult question that would take more than a day or two to research. In that case, you might just want to drop the patron a note saying that you're working on the question, but that there may be a slight delay before the patron receives an answer. You might also use this if you just want to tell the patron that you're consulting with other librarians or referring the question to another library. That might also involve a delay in getting the patron an answer.

If you choose 'Staff comment', your message will not be sent to the patron at all, and only librarians will be able to read it.

If you click on the 'Set to Closed’ button 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 click on the ‘Mark as spam’, the question status will change to closed and will be deleted soon after being marked as spam. Most spam gets trapped before it gets into the e-mail software, but use this anytime you see a question that is clearly spam.

If you choose ‘Open this question’ a closed question’s status will change to open and the question will appear in the list of open questions.

If you choose ‘Update patron's email address’, copy the patron's address from its location in the transcript and paste it into the box. Click on the change button. The patron's email address will display at the top of the record right where it is supposed to be.