[Publib] Book A Librarian

[Carlie Hoffman]

Dear friends,

We are thinking of implementing a Book a Librarian service whereby patrons
can make appointments with librarians for an alloted amount of time. Before
we begin, we are hoping to compile some information from the collective
brain.

I know lots of libraries are doing a Book a Librarian service so I am hoping
you can share some of your policies. There are some questions below, but if
you have any links to your service, guidelines for patrons, and/or
guidelines for librarians those would be great too. Also any stories - good
or bad.

 How long have you been offering this service?
What has been the responses from your customers?
Do you offer it anytime the library is open, or only during certain hours?
If you have more than one branch location, do you offer it everywhere or
only at the main branch?
Do you only use MLS staff, or do you also use paraprofessional staff?
What sort of advertising/promotion do you do, besides the link on the web
site?
How do they handle the actual scheduling of the one-on-one sessions?

 If any of you have experience with a service like this, your information
would be greatly appreciated. I searched the archives for this topic, but I
did not find very much on publib. When I searched libref-l, I got more
results but under a misspelled subject heading (Providing personalizedl
internet service). This discussion is now over 4 years old.

I am really hoping we can start doing this. Although we make some individual
apppointments with people already, having a named service with guidelines
and policies seems like a great idea. It also seems like it has the
possibility of taking some of the pressures off of staff working on the
reference desk.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your help and information.

Carlie



Carlie Hoffman
Librarian, Adult Services
Spokane County Library District
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