[Answerland] December- Answerland Updates, Reminders & Best Practices

[COX Jennifer * SLO]

Good Morning,

It's my last chance to squeak in a couple of last minute reminders...

Who are the Answerland Partner Libraries? - Please refresh yourself with the current list of Full Partner Libraries and Referral Partner Libraries<https://answerland.org/about-us/partner-libraries/>. Transferring questions to our fellow Answerland libraries ensures that patrons get timely follow up to their questions and helpful local help that may not be available in the FAQs for that library.  In last month's updates, I showed you how to transfer to  Referral Partner Library using the Address book (which is pre-populated with the preferred email addresses of those libraries). Please refer back to that message.

FAQ
A reminder to review the information on your library's FAQs. Making sure that the information is accurate and updated helps those covering live chat be able to help your patrons better when you are not available to help them.

New Answerland Partner Libraries
I'm disappointed that I cannot see this fully through to make official announcements at the moment. I'm excited that there will be additional academic libraries that will be joining the Cooperative in 2024. Stay tuned for further details.

Claiming/Unclaiming Tickets
This is a reminder for those staffer both seasoned and new. If you click on a ticket and you are not planning on answering it, you must the "Unclaim" button so someone is able to answer the ticket. Otherwise the ticket sits unanswered until either you or I go into the ticket and click the button. It's hard for me to tell if you are authentically formulating a response and intending to follow up with the ticket or forgot that you clicked on it. A best practice, please double check the status of tickets before you log out from your shift.  This way it gives other chat operators  the ability to answer it and the patron to get timely response.

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Stats Tracking
There are reports available on your dashboard but we can request additional reports if you are not finding the information that you need. Please know specifically what the stats are that you are seeking. There are limitations to these reports as there are inherent limitations to the way that the Springshare software is designed. If you have question on any statistics for accreditation or other assessments, please contact Tamara. She will work with the Central Staff to provide what information is available.

Shift changes in the Interim
Yes, you can change your shifts over the next 3-4 months. How?

For the short term, I will be having you schedule your shifts through Springshare Central staff.  Use this Permanent Schedule Change Form<https://247cooperative.libstaffer.com/form/permanent-schedule-change>.

You MUST copy Tamara Ottum  tamara.ottum at slo.oregon.gov<mailto:tamara.ottum at slo.oregon.gov>  on the form by entering her information in the Schedule Administrative Contact Name and Email address fields. If you do not, we will not receive the information otherwise.

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For the future when a new coordinator is in place, it's preferred that you schedule your shifts through the Answerland Coordinator. Why?  Springshare Central only prioritizes staffing for the Global Academic/Public queues. They do not look into holistic staffing for the Answerland General queue. By contacting the Coordinator, this gives them time to provide feedback if the scheduling does not meet the needs of the Answerland General schedules and can be coordinated in concert with the Global or Spanish queues.

Recruitment for Answerland Mentors
Believe it or not our volunteer corps picks up a lot of our schedule gaps which helps provide consistency to patron services during the morning, evening and weekend hours. Our mentor capacity is a REAL bottleneck for onboarding new volunteers. With the current shortage, we have transitioned to cohort(community of practice) style training & onboarding of new mentors and mentees. The Cohort Model works along with the mentor/mentee model but takes some of the initial burden off the mentor's shoulder for the training portion.

If you have never considered it, I, highly, suggest giving it a try. Most of our volunteers are current 2 year grad students or recent grads with little reference experience. Since we have volunteers all over the U.S including Puerto Rico, it's important to build a sense of community and build a larger support network of people. The ambition and enthusiasm from current MLS/MLIS student or recent grads is infectious! It gives me a real boost. You would be surprised and delighted by the tech fluency of the current/recent students.

If you are interested, reach out to tamara.ottum at slo.oregon.gov<mailto:tamara.ottum at slo.oregon.gov>. Tamara will only have the bandwidth for the essential functions but she can take your information down and you will be contacted when the next mentor training sessions are scheduled. You can even specify taking on only one mentee/ year, no problem. It all helps!  The typical mentorship commitment looks like 1-2 hours of synchronous interactions. Then approximately 30 minutes-1 hour/week for 10 weeks to provide asynchronous transcript feedback coaching to a mentee. Of course, you are always welcome to have more interaction but the above is what is required.


Sincerely,


Jennifer Cox, MLIS (she/her)
Virtual Reference Coordinator, Library Support & Development Services
State Library of Oregon
jennifer.cox at slo.oregon.gov<mailto:jennifer.cox at slo.oregon.gov> | 971-600-4992
www.oregon.gov/library/libraries<https://www.oregon.gov/library/libraries>
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