Under usual reference circumstances, we try to get the answer for a patron as quickly as possible; but often we have to do a m

3/18/2004 InfoEyes Advisory Committee Meeting Agenda

Time: 1:00pm central; 2:00pm eastern on Thursday 3/18/04

Participation: Open to all. At least one participant from each library encouraged to attend.

Location: Ivocalize chat room (link has been updated since last meeting): http://talkingcommunities.com/entrance.pl?28428001238

1) Welcome (Diana)

2) Discussion of 3/12 accessibility meeting with OCLC (Diana / Lori / Tom)

3) Review of the role of Question Point basic chat & Question Point Enhanced (Lori / Diana)

4) Publicity (Lori)

5) Revisiting guidelines for when to refer a patron to their home library. (Diana)

a. At our last advisory committee meeting we decided: Refer the patron to their home library for follow up if you cannot answer their question. Follow up is to be in the hands of the patron’s home state.

b. However, this question has come up (from Linda Rossman at Perkins): Under usual reference circumstances, we try to get the answer for a patron as quickly as possible; but often we have to do a more in-depth search and for many questions we end up taking the patron’s number and giving a call back. If, in this project, we can’t locate the immediate answer while the patron is “on the line” and need more time to do a more thorough search, are we supposed to offer to call the patron back or just refer them back to their own home library?

i. What procedures can we establish in instances like this when you can answer a question, but it will take more time?

1. Consider what best serves the patron

2. Consider our own work flow in this equation

3. Limit on amount of time given to a single reference question before referring it to the patron’s home library?

4. What follow-up method to use? Phone? Email? Patron “call back” into InfoEyes? Other?

5. Method of referral to home library? Ask patron to contact home library? Contact home library for patron: by phone? By emailing session text chat? Other?

6. Other issues to consider?

6) Referral of email questions from Lori to people working on the InfoEyes desk (Lori)

a. How will we keep track of who has taken care of email questions?

b. Do all questions posed via the email link go into the QPS queue?

7) Sharing the patron’s web browser (Diana)

a. Advantages

b. Disadvantages (patron has to give librarian permission to take control: buttons for that need to be bigger)

8) Procedure for when a person is not responding to text chat:

1) turn on URL share and send them this page:
http://www.infoeyes.org/accessibilitytips.htm (page can be added to your scripts for easy access)

2) Say aloud, "It seems like you are having trouble. I have just sent you a web page with instructions to help you communicate with me." (This should also be added to scripts for easy recall)

3) Once the patron gets into the box, remember to turn off URL share before doing any App. Share.

9) Future issues to address: (Tom Peters)

a. Policy for addressing pending/unclaimed questions in the QP standard chat queue

i. Review of how to tell when a question in the queue is unanswered

b. Policy on whether to wait for new person to log on before you log out.

c. When more than one librarian is logged on, how to divide up the questions in an unambiguous fashion

i. within QPS and QPE, is there a way for two or more logged in librarians to communicate among themselves?

10) Any other issues needing clarification, either now or in future meetings? (Diana)

11) Comments, suggestions, questions, resolutions about

project launch? (Diana)