AskUsNow! Information for Liaisons of New Partner Libraries

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Welcome to the Maryland AskUsNow! family! This page will give you everything you need to get started with AskUsNow!. 

First things first

Before getting started with AskUsNow!, make sure your director has filled out a letter of intent for your institution. The letter of intent is the official "go" from your director stating that your insitution will be participating with AskUsNow! and who your liaison will be. If you previously filled out a letter of intent but have not been an active partner with AskUsNow! for over a year, please fill out a new one.

This page will get you, the new AskUsNow! liaison, situated with AskUsNow!. This page supplements an hour long phone call or meeting with the statewide coordinator to get you set up and running.

What does the Liaison do?

Each AskUsNow! Partner insitution appoints a liaison to be their organization's representative. In short, the Project Liaison has these responsibilities:

  1. Represent the partner library system at statewide meetings
  2. Report training and scheduling needs to the statewide coordinator and/or operations assistant
  3. Monitor local performance data, including session transcripts and referrals
  4. Maintain scheduling and arrange for substitutes as necessary
  5. Maintains the currency of local library information used by the cooperative
  6. Markets AskUsNow! to their community
  7. Contributes enthusiasm and energy to make the project a success!

Read more about the duties of the Liaison.

The Staff Support Page

The AskUsNow! Staff Support Inner Harbor website (the website you are on now) is the place to go for all your AskUsNow! needs. This is where meeting details, contact numbers, troubleshooting information and more live. Please take a moment to scan through the types of information on the site. Things to note include:

  • the contact page: this is where you can get contact info for the project supervisors, grant supervisors, and all of the partner liaisons. This is also where the project coordinator's meebo widgets live; through these widgets you can IM Julie or Cathay for quick assistance.

  • the Liaisons meeting page: this is where you can get information on all past and future liaison meetings including dates, times, and meeting minutes.
  • the schedule area is where you can find the statewide AskUsNow! shift schedule and substitutions calendar

Preparing to go "live"

These are the things that need to happen before your institution can actually "go live" with AskUsNow!

  1. AskUsNow! creates and activate a QuestionPoint account (SUP) institution
  2. AskUsNow! creates user accounts for the liaison and each of the providers at your institution
  3. The Liaison fills out the institution's Policy Page. The policy page is a page that allows other librarians in QuestionPoint to serve as your customer's local librarian. Check out the info on Policy Pages for more details on how to do this
  4. The liaison and project coordinators set the institution's monitoring schedule
  5. An all-day New Staff Training is scheduled to train the institution's AskUsNow! providers
  6. Providers practice their newly learned skills before monitoring the live queues
  7. The liaison and partner institution market AskUsNow! to their community and add their unique URL and the AskUsNow! logo to their website and other online areas.

The How-To of Liaison-ing

Here is a list of the various documentations that will be useful in performing Liaison duties.

QuestionPoint-created documentation http://www.questionpoint.org/support/documentation/gettingstarted/index.html