Comments on: Stress! http://shinylib.com/2009/05/27/stress/ the shiny librarian Wed, 12 May 2010 01:38:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: rachel http://shinylib.com/2009/05/27/stress/comment-page-1/#comment-4007 rachel Thu, 28 May 2009 14:08:51 +0000 http://shinylib.com/?p=398#comment-4007 hey there...first off...ouch. this situation sounds super frustrating. i know just what you mean about the temptation to just say "we're doing it this way because i say we are". that kind of thing never goes down well in libraries though. second...i know the LAST thing you probably want right now is a different idea about how to staff this thing but i thought i'd tell you what we're doing that works very, very well. You're using libraryh3lp, right? the beauty of libraryh3lp is that you don't really HAVE to decide exactly who is staffing it at all times. the way we do it is: you have to monitor if you're at the reference desk. you may *optionally* monitor it from in your office. The person at the reference desk is the "first line" but anyone may answer any IM. If you're in your office and you notice it's taking the ref desk a while to answer one, you pick it up because they're probably busy at the reference desk. If you're at the reference desk with a patron, you MAY set your IM to busy, *even though* that means we might appear "offline" to IM patrons if there's no one doing back up in their office. We had a lot of anxiety at the outset about how the ref desk would balance in person and IM ref questions and it just hasn't been a problem. When we first started there were just two or three of us who monitored the libraryh3lp from their office, now everyone does. Because they find it pretty easy and fun. We usually have the situation of being out at the ref desk and having someone in their office pick up the IM before you get to it. it really has worked well for us. i know we're really small and we have fancy-pants offices and we're probably a lot more comfortable with loosey-goosey "we're just going to see how this goes" type stuff than pcc. but i will say that even for me personally, i really appreciate having the back up when i'm out there on the ref desk and having the liberty to just switch it to "away" when i'm super-super busy out there. hope that helps or at least doesn't add to your rage :) hang in there, this will pass. hey there…first off…ouch. this situation sounds super frustrating. i know just what you mean about the temptation to just say “we’re doing it this way because i say we are”. that kind of thing never goes down well in libraries though.

second…i know the LAST thing you probably want right now is a different idea about how to staff this thing but i thought i’d tell you what we’re doing that works very, very well. You’re using libraryh3lp, right? the beauty of libraryh3lp is that you don’t really HAVE to decide exactly who is staffing it at all times. the way we do it is: you have to monitor if you’re at the reference desk. you may *optionally* monitor it from in your office. The person at the reference desk is the “first line” but anyone may answer any IM. If you’re in your office and you notice it’s taking the ref desk a while to answer one, you pick it up because they’re probably busy at the reference desk. If you’re at the reference desk with a patron, you MAY set your IM to busy, *even though* that means we might appear “offline” to IM patrons if there’s no one doing back up in their office. We had a lot of anxiety at the outset about how the ref desk would balance in person and IM ref questions and it just hasn’t been a problem. When we first started there were just two or three of us who monitored the libraryh3lp from their office, now everyone does. Because they find it pretty easy and fun. We usually have the situation of being out at the ref desk and having someone in their office pick up the IM before you get to it. it really has worked well for us. i know we’re really small and we have fancy-pants offices and we’re probably a lot more comfortable with loosey-goosey “we’re just going to see how this goes” type stuff than pcc. but i will say that even for me personally, i really appreciate having the back up when i’m out there on the ref desk and having the liberty to just switch it to “away” when i’m super-super busy out there.

hope that helps or at least doesn’t add to your rage :) hang in there, this will pass.

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