Collaboration

L-net is a multi-type collaborative service, meaning that public, academic, school and law libraries all answer questions for each others' patrons.

Some reference questions can be equally well answered by any librarian, but others require a subject specialist or knowledge of a specific institution's collections and policies.

We acknowledge that patrons are best served by their local librarians, but also find that collaborative reference can be excellent given a few shared policies and tools.

Service philosophy and best practices

L-net libraries share a service philosophy and service guidelines to ensure consistent, high-quality service.

Our service guidelines are based on national and international standards, published research, case studies of our own experience, and feedback from patrons and librarians.

Policy pages

L-net librarians have access to a page summarizing policies and links to library services for each L-net partner library. Librarians use these pages to quickly answer questions about another library.

Patrons are identified as belonging to a particular library through their referring URL, or if that is not available, by asking them which library they use.

24/7 coverage

24/7 coverage is achieved through partnerships with Ohio's KnowItNow24x7 service and the Northeast Ohio Regional Library System's AfterDark librarians.

Schedule

In exchange, L-net librarians cover Ohio's KnowItNow24x7 service during our regular hours if we have three or more librarians assigned to a shift.

Licensed resources

Libraries license resources for their own patrons to use and cannot share those resources with patrons from another library.

We have studied this problem and released a report and recommendations in 2003, Working with Licensed Resources.

Our general policy is to use resources available at the patron's library. We recommend that libraries supply a barcode that L-net librarians can use to help patrons remotely.

E-mail and followup questions

About 10% of L-net questions come through our e-mail form. An additional 5-10% of questions can't be answered in chat and get assigned for followup. Sometimes these are circulation questions.

Most questions come from patrons, but a few questions come from Oregon libraries who are seeking additional help for one of their patrons.

L-net librarians collaborate to answer these questions through our e-mail and followup system.