At the beginning of each reference session, always scroll through the Patron Info tab located in the lower-left corner of your Chat Monitor. There, you will see some important information that reveals the patron’s true location so you can access the Policy Pages correctly and efficiently, using the pull-down menu when needed.
Here is an example:
A student from Utah contacts the service. When the session appears in the New tab in the Chat Monitor, the queue says: B Utah/Dixie (UNIV OF UTAH).
Once the librarian joins the session and scrolls to the bottom of the Patron Info tab, the librarian sees the lower-cased field entitled "library" (since the title is in lower-case, it indicates that the field contains information provided by the patron).
Patron’s Library: UNIV OF UTAH
Queue: B Utah/Dixie
Referer: http://www.lib.utah.edu/247-IM/index.html
Category: UALC
library: Dixie State College of Utah
When the chatting librarian clicks the Policies link, the Policy Page shown is the main policy page for the UALC group--the University of Utah's policy page. The librarian should click the pull-down menu to access policy pages for other libraries in the UALC group. In this case, the librarian selects DIXIE STATE COL (UUtah) and clicks the Submit button:
As the librarian continues the reference session by asking the student some questions, he will have access to the Dixie State College of Utah’s policies and resources.
Here is another example of when it would be useful for the chatting librarian to use the pull-down menu in the Policy Page:
A student logs into Maryland AskUsNow! service through the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System’s website (a public library). The chatting librarian scrolls through the Patron Info tab and opens the policy page. After asking the student some questions, he discovers that she is a student at the University of Maryland, College Park. Scholarly databases would be useful to this student, so the librarian clicks the pull-down menu in the Policy Page, selects UNIV OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK (MDAsk-A) and clicks the Submit button:
The Policy Page window will change, displaying the information provided by the University of Maryland, College Park. The chatting librarian can scroll down to the “Databases” section and retrieve the username and password provided by the UMD-CP librarians so he can view subject categories and the databases within them, as well as the full alphabetical database and e-journal lists. Then, he can continue the reference session by recommending specific databases and offering sample search queries using advanced Boolean logic.
Do you have questions or comments about policy pages? Comment to the blog, or send an email to Susan McGlamery, [email protected].
Comments