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IM Best Practices (adapt as appropriate)

IM is another point of contact. Staff can apply policies already established forhelping patrons in person, on the phone, or via email. For example, if it is your

librarys/units/divisions policy to not provide statistical information over the

phone, e.g. the current GDP for the United States, but will send them the link tothe appropriate government website then follow the same policy when interacting

with a patron on IM.

For staff in private institutions that do not have a mandate to provide referenceservice to non-affiliates, staff may want to refer non-affiliates to their local public

library [see canned message for this]. See chapter six for information about

putting your service behind a log in screen so that only current affiliates can log

in.

Stress to staff that they can take their time to think and type - often patrons aremultitasking and do not expect an instantaneous response. If they need time towork on a question they can let the person know that you are still working on it,

or can offer to get back to him or her [see canned messages for sample wording]

Staff do not need to give out their names. Most software does not reveal internalIM handles, patrons will only see that they are chatting with a librarian. Of

course, if staff are comfortable giving out their name they should. If your software

has the ability to transfer questions to another librarian and you have decided to

utilize this feature it is a good practice to provide the name of the librarian to

which you transferring the patron.

Often a concern of staff is that they will be expected to utilize the IM or textspeak that patrons utilize. Stress to staff that they are not expect to use theseconventions, as it is important to convey a professional image. But it is fine to

add smiley face now and then! ;)

Sometimes staff may have more patrons than they can handle [a sign of asuccessful service!]. Staff should feel comfortable informing a few patrons that

they are with another patron and will get back to them shortly. [See the canned

messages]

Software best practices (adapt as appropriate)

With some software more than one person can be logged in at a time. If youdecide to have multiple staff logged in at one time there are two possible ways to

handle this:

o If you are scheduling staff for discrete hours only the person who isscheduled for that hour is responsible for answering questions; any another

staff logged in can be available on a referral basis.

OR

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o If multiple staff are logged in, no matter what scheduling method you use,whoever grabs the question first is responsible for answering it.

If you decide that only the person who is scheduled for that hour should answerincoming questions then the other staff logged in should be reminded to not pick

up questions. Having multiple librarians and interns fighting for questionscould lead to confusion.

If your software allows you to transfer an IM question to another librarian it isimportant that the librarian who is transferring the question do the following:

o Contact the librarian to whom you want to transfer the question make surethat he or she is available to receive the IM question.

o Notify the patron that you are transferring him or her to another librarian.Collegial best practices (adapt as appropriate)

If scheduling staff for discrete hours, if it has been decided that only one staffmember will answer questions during a shift, it is good practice that staff get intothe practice of handing off shifts even if the software allows multiple librarians to

be logged in. Staff should IM the person scheduled before them to let them know

that they are now available to answer questions.

Staff log in for their discrete hour or shift. When the next person takes over thatperson should inform the previous person that they are ready to take over.

Staff should inform the person before them if they are going to be late. Staff are responsible for finding coverage for their shifts when they are onvacation or have other commitments. Staff should log out at the end of the day so that the service does not appear to be

available when it really is not.