AUN Staffing Survey Summary

This informal survey of the liaisons was done between the September and December Liaisons meetings

1) Does your library have a formal policy for staffing AskUsNow!?

Yes – 3
No—8

If yes, what does it require?

Karen Quinn Wisnewski, CCBC: Each campus (3) staff AskUsNow within schedule. Essex & Catonsville 2 hours per week and Dundalk 1 hour

John Krivak, Prince Georges’ County Memorial Library: Staff must have the approval of their first line supervisor and branch manager, or equivalent unit head if not in a branch (for example one of our outreach librarians is a provider).

Bob Baldwin, Allegany College of Maryland: Yes. We have one position designated as the AskUsNow librarian.

2) Are all librarians required to provide service?

Elizabeth Beere, Carroll Community Library

Are all librarians required to provide service? Yes.

If yes, is this requirement included in their job description? No, it is not. The job description talks about providing reference service, but it does not specify that virtual reference is included. However, we think that is a good idea to put into the description for future hires.

Catherine McGuire, Maryland State Law Library

Are all librarians required to provide service?

If yes, is this requirement included in their job description?

No

Gregor Becker, Carroll County Public Library

Are all librarians required to provide service? Five staff persons are all required to provide service. New dept. sub to be trained.

If yes, is this requirement included in their job description? yes

If no, how are staff selected? What technical or public service skills do you feel are important? Staff in our telephone reference department all have experience on a public reference desk. Strong communication skills are crucial. Experience with electronic searching expected.

Betty Morganstern, Anne Arundel County Public Library

As far as who is trained to provide the service, it’s been left up to the manager. The selection of who is trained is a combination of who is tech savvy enough to balance the technology & service issues. They are not volunteers though. Some managers have opted for training more people than others. I think everyone asked though has wanted to participate and I don’t know of anyone who has refused.

Alison Sherwell, Charles County Public Library

Are all librarians required to provide service?

If yes, is this requirement included in their job description? Some staff has it in their job description but not all.

Suzanne Carbone, Montgomery County Public Libraries

Are all librarians required to provide service?

If yes, is this requirement included in their job description? No-not all librarians in MCPL are required to provide this service. But-it is included in the PPEs of those who do provide the service.

If no, how are staff selected? What technical or public service skills do you feel are important? AskUsNow is staffed by most of the librarians at the Rockville Library who are scheduled to work in the Ask-A-Librarian unit. We also include staff from other branches and locations. Interest in chat and IM, and in new service models, reference knowledge, excellent communication skills and technical knowledge, including 23 Things, downloadables, MCPL policy are all important in providing the service.

John Krivak, Prince George’s County Memorial Library

Are all librarians required to provide service?

If yes, is this requirement included in their job description?

If no, how are staff selected? What technical or public service skills do you feel are important? Staff are essentially self-selected volunteers. I have encouraged specific librarians to become involved, when I see someone with both good online reference competencies and good customer service skills. I have encouraged youth services librarians to become involved because of our preponderance of school age student users.

Karen Quinn Wisnewski, CCBC

Are all librarians required to provide service? No

If yes, is this requirement included in their job description? No

If no, how are staff selected? What technical or public service skills do you feel are important? The cataloging librarian is not required, other librarians have just not been able to attend training but will be going in the year.

Bob Baldwin, Allegany College of Maryland

Are all librarians required to provide service? No. Only one of our librarians at a less busy branch.

Elizabeth Hulett, Washington County Free Library

Not all staff is required to provide service. I chose those among my staff who worked enough hours to make scheduling practical. Good customer service skills are the most important criteria. Technical proficiency is also important, but at this stage of development all staff have the technical skills required before they are hired.

Amy Ford, St. Mary’s

No. Staff are selected based on staffing levels at the branch. At our other two branches, where there are fewer staff and they are generally part-time, only one staff member is trained to work AUN. At my branch, 5 ref librarians (all of them) are trained for AUN and participate on a round-robin basis. I feel that it’s important for all of our librarians to participate in a different mode of answering questions and keep online ref skills sharp. I feel that empathy with the customer and online resource evaluation skills are important for staffing the service, and fortunately, the staff selected to work AUN do a pretty good job with both.

3) Do you staff AskUsNow from one location? Or from multiple branches? What factors influenced this decision?

Elizabeth Beere, Carroll Community Library: We only have one campus, so yes, our AUN is done from one location.

Catherine McGuire, Maryland State Law Library: Yes and no. The State Law Library only has the one location; however, several years ago, Mary Rice with the Charles County Public Law Library volunteered to assist in responding to law followup questions, so you could say we have a branch for AUN purposes. She was brought into the service to assist when I was out on maternity leave, and has continued to provide backup after my return, giving flexibility to myself and the other MSLL staff person involved in the service. From a planning/scheduling perspective, it's been beneficial to us to have a "branch" staff on AUN, since there have been times that either this building was closed (weather, or some other issue; and certainly with this year's furloughs, backup will be of assistance as well), or both Rudi and I have been simultaneously out, which burdens the staff here, and makes Mary's AUN backup essential.

Gregor Becker,Carroll County Public Library: Our staff do AskUsNow from our library headquarters or from home-telecommuting. Currently only 2 of 5 telecommute . This is due to modifications of our telecommuting policy. Staff pay more of the cost, need a very recent computer.

Betty Morganstern, Anne Arundel County Public Library; At AACPL it’s done at the 3 area branches – because they have the largest staff.

Alison Sherwell, Charles County Public Library; All three of our branches have VR workers b/c there is not enough people in one branch.

Suzanne Carbone, Montgomery County Public Libraries: Since the initiation of the Virtual Services Branch in August 2008, we have moved toward multiple branch staffing. We currently have librarians from Rockville, from Virtual Services, and from the Little Falls and White Oak libraries covering chat and IM. A librarian from Potomac also was part of this schedule until going on maternity leave in the spring.

We were influenced in this decision by the fact that Virtual Services is interested in creating virtual teams throughout the department. We also want to provide opportunities for MCPL staff to use their skills in the virtual world as well as the physical one.

John Krivak, Prince George’s County Memorial Library; Multiple branches. We have a decentralized library system, with no central reference department, so it was natural for us to staff AUN by seeking volunteers from various branches. This also allows us to cover a fairly high number of hours, since multiple branches are sharing the staffing.

Karen Quinn Wisnewski, CCBC; AskUsNow is staffed at each librarian’s desk computer at his/her campus. The factor was being able to do other work at your desk during slow periods.

Bob Baldwin, Allegany College of Maryland: We do not provide chat, only e-mail follow up.

Elizabeth Hulett, Washington County Free Library: We staff AskUsNow from the main library only. Branches do not have enough staff to cover AskUsNow

Amy Ford, St. Mary’s : Multiple branches—it seemed best to spread out the workload and the awareness of AUN

4) How many hours a week (on average) does each librarian provide chat reference service?

Elizabeth Beere, Carroll Community Library: Because we have a small staff, we only do 5 hours a week (the minimum required to join AUN) as a group. It actually works out well because there are 5 librarians, so each person does a specific hour each week. Our director is also included in the 5 librarians who do AUN.

Catherine McGuire, Maryland State Law Library: Not applicable to us.

Gregor Becker,Carroll County Public Library:

12 hours total.
1. 3.5 hrs (alternate Friday and Saturday
2. 3.5
3. 2.5
4. 1.5
5. 1 (supervisor)
Hours are just AUN coverage. We also do followup questions 3 days per week.

Betty Morganstern, Anne Arundel County Public Library; The number of hours a week each person does depends on the branch – during the course of a month I think everyone provides at least some hours of service. The person in charge of reference at the area library works with the overall branch scheduler to set the AUN schedule. Each area library provides 12 hours of service – down from 15 hours per week at each area library in FY 09.

Alison Sherwell, Charles County Public Library: about one hour a week

Suzanne Carbone, Montgomery County Public Libraries: Between 2-6 hours.

John Krivak, Prince George’s County Memorial Library: 1.5 on average

Karen Quinn Wisnewski, CCBC; 2 or less – we staff it 5 hours and there are 10 trained librarians.

Bob Baldwin, Allegany College of Maryland: We do not provide chat, only e-mail follow up.

Elizabeth Hulett, Washington County Free Library: One hour per week

Amy Ford, St. Mary’s: At our other two branches, the one librarian provides 2 hours of AUN service per week—at my branch, the 5 of us rotate 2 hours of AUN duty a week and pick up the hours of the other branches if someone is sick, on vacation, etc. One of my staff does the follow-up questions as well.