L-net goings-on

L-net is closed January 16th from 9am to 8pm in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday. If you are using L-net Local, it should still work normally except rolling over won't begin until AfterDark comes on at 8pm. 

 

 

 

There are only really a few things we'll hope you remember when you work with patrons from all over Oregon. We've posted these, in summary, as our "service philosophy", at www.oregonlibraries.net/philosophy. Between serving all comers and being friendly, I'd like to explicitly add that we'd like you to make the patron feel welcome. 

 

Lots of times, L-net isn't the best way to get certain questions answered. But patrons don't always know that and they shouldn't be punished for it. You can still follow through with the reference interview, get contact information, and send the question to followup to make sure the question gets answered. 

 

 

Another way to handle this situation would be to tell the patron to call the library when they open. What's wrong with that? For starters, it forces the patron to duplicate the effort of asking the question. But worse is that it sends a message to the patron that they've made a mistake in connecting to the library by chat.

 

It is also true that sometimes patrons don't mind being redirected to a different service. It is often helpful to *offer* a phone number or another way to solve the problem, but it is important not to *demand* it. Be welcoming:

 

http://www.oregonlibraries.net/ask/301423 - another patron returned books to the wrong library and asks for a phone number. The same librarian as above picked it up (she picks up a lot of chats - thank you!) and besides being welcoming, she immediately offers the phone number. The patron calls and the problem is solved. It is a little extra work for the patron's library to comment that the question is finished (thank YOU, too!), but we are all absolutely sure this patron's question hasn't slipped through the cracks. 

 

One more - http://www.oregonlibraries.net/ask/300714 - the patron wants to know if she can see a history of books she has read. The librarian doesn't know, but thinks it might be possible. She is helpful and succinctly explains both reader privacy and L-net. The question is answered in a few hours without the patron having to lift another finger. 

 

This strategy works in chat, text and email. You can always try to make the patron feel like it was a good idea to ask a question. If you can get an email address or barcode for followup, their home library will be able to help. Let them know, "you have come to the right place".

 

Thank you for being so welcoming!

 

 

 

In December, L-net and L-net Local had 2,427 visitors asking questions. This was 15% more than the previous December, though not quite as much as the record December 2009. We had 177 text message questions, 95 email questions and 2,155 chat questions.

 

For the calendar year 2011 we had 34,872 questions total, including 1,818 by text, 1,281 by email and 31,773 by chat.

 

 

 

If you've never tried it, you might have forgotten it was possible, but there is a way to send patrons files in chat. In the upper-right hand corner of your window there is a series of icons. Look for the one that looks like a grey box with a green arrow pointing towards the sky. This is the "upload" button. From there, just pick a file and it will be sent to the patron.

 

This feature is limited to certain file types, but we can adjust it if we need to. If you have trouble sending a certain type of file, just let us know and we'll try to fix it.