[Publib] How do you correct a coworker giving incorrectinformation?

[Dale McNeill]

When I managed a very large telephone reference department, I encouraged
staff to ask customers "would you like to leave your name and number, in
case we learn an additional information in the next day or two?"  This
worked very well.  We didn't ask for simple factual questions "who was the
US Ambassador to China in 1975?", but did for many other questions.  The
names and numbers were filed by the subject of the question and kept for no
more than 5 days, generally only 2 days.  While the main purpose was to add
information, we did use these numbers to correct errors as well.  At that
time (from about 10 to 15 years ago, more or less) about 1/8 of customers
would leave contact information when asked.  (We actually knew who all
callers were, but did not retain the information unless the customer
agreed.)

Also, in these banks of telephone reference, one *expects* to be corrected
and aided by co-workers.  I never did reference the same way after working
so closely with other librarians and library associates.  Our profession, at
least the reference part of it, works best when collegial, I found.

Regards,

Dale
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