Tips (General)

When answering business questions on AskAway, institution-specific guides and resources are the first place to check; if you are looking for additional information, though, a great new resource called Small Business Accelerator (SBA) may be the next place to look.

It helps with queries such as:

What kinds of questions do we answer?
We are open to all questions, and will provide help with course-related research tasks e.g. finding books, journals, articles, etc..

--Service Guidelines for Service Providers

The AskAway Portal - Staff Tools has a new feature: a button that will automatically create an email addressed to the listserv saying that AskAway is swamped. All you have to do to is press "send". The button is located in the section called "Tools for your shift". This feature was requested by a service provider, and we are pleased to make it available; we're always happy to hear new ideas or suggestions.

Communicating online in AskAway can be a challenge at times - particularly when students use unfamiliar chat lingo that we may not recognise!

Ever stumped by someone using IMO [in my opinion]? Stymied by a student typing BRB [be right back]? Deterred by a student going AFK [away from keyboard]?

The AskAway Shift Check-List has been updated with recommended web pages, a check-in list for QuestionPoint and Campfire logins and lots more tips to assist you with starting each shift!

Here's what you need to know when working with a patron using an EBSCO Qwidget.

1. When a patron opens up a chat session in an EBSCO database then starts a new search or tries any other navigation away from their current page with the chat Qwidget - they can lose the chat. They should receive a warning before they lose the chat (depending on their browser), with the option to cancel, but this feature is currently experiencing some bugs.

A number of AskAwayers have requested that I send out a reminder about Campfire.  One AAer said:

"Can you please send out another AskAway reminder to ask people to log into campfire, and to make a note to the campfire board if they need to step away from their computers? I'm on a shift right now, and 2 out of 4 librarians are not in campfire. Knowing that librarians are temporarily away from their computers makes queue management more streamlined."

Many libraries, including those at Royal Roads University, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver Island University and University of British Columbia, have added Summon to their websites. Here is a brief overview of Summon, based on notes from UBC’s Sheryl Adam. Her complete notes can be accessed here (PDF).

One aspect of a regional service, with AskAwayers assisting patrons from all over BC and from Yukon, is that there are small technical differences between libraries which lead to varying network speeds.  There are also differences that may vary day-to-day, and affect some institutions sometimes and not other times.

As we move into the beginning of another AskAway term, here’s a couple of tips for ‘getting back in the saddle’:

1.  Get familiar with the Staff Portal again.  This is where you’ll find links to all the tools you need to staff your shift (QP login, Campfire login, scripts, library guest logins, policy pages, etc..).