Ask Us - Chat: Chat Meeting Summaries

Chat Training Summary

April 10th, 2018

1. Shortcut URLs, GetURLs, and more—Darcy 10 minutes

See handout below. 

2. Reference Documentation Project: Overview, progress, feedback. Tina: 15 minutes

Prep: Please complete this activity prior to the meeting: Using the Business/Management/Social Sciences - draft page, please find the answers to:

• Do we have access to Bloomberg?
• Do we have Harvard Business School case studies?
• Where can I find a list of private equity firms?
• How do I find information on venture capital?

During the meeting, we will discuss your experience with searching for the answers, and provide feedback to improve the page.

Notes from meeting: 

• Control find was easier to use then the TOC anchors at the top
• The TOC seemed to be incomplete. It was a little difficult to determine what was in each section. 
• Ref Doc team should work with UX to test how these pages will be used 

3. Borrow Direct & Illiad Q &A. Allyson & Jessica: 20 minutes.

Prep: bring your questions about using BD and Illiad!

1. ILB and BD are not available for office delivery

2. What happens when there are no BD links in WC? You could try sending them to the BD interface. (Libraries homepage--> Get it link from Borrow & request menu--> Borrow Direct link under Books column --> Borrow direct link undr the Order online from Borrow Direct prompt) CC is looking into a BD shortcut link. 

3. How long are ILB articles available in Iliad accounts? LB article/book chapter scan--they have 14 days to access the file after it has been delivered and made available to them. JS is looking into email about expiration. 

4. ILB cannot get articles from CRL news directly, but always good to ask them because they may be able to get it from another source. Don't be confused by Harvard's location for CRL news in their catalog. 

5. ILB will always try to get newspaper articles; complete bibliographic info is really useful for newspaper article requests. 

6. ILB can request chapters of books. Use the article request form. 

7. Don’t forget to ask for status!! "Others" can’t do certain things with ILB and BD. Check the priviledges page! 

8. Troubleshooting when users think request is “lost”

• Should get confirmation e-mails when request is submitted!
• Check spam filters
• Can send to ilb-lib if it should be here (or circulation@mit.edu, we forward it along)

9. illiad Status message- glossary: https://mit-illiad-oclc-org.libproxy.mit.edu/illiad/glossary.html

10. BD/ILB not eligible for office delivery

11. Proxy borrowers cannot make requests for faculty, but can pick it up

12. Patron wants a chapter

• Request PDF in Barton
• BD request for whole book
• Full chapter in Illiad through the article request!! Not book

 

 

Chat Meeting Summary

April 27th, 2017

Chat procedure “round robin”

• MFA pass review:
• Transcripts are easy to get from Ask Chat dashboard in SpringShare. On the yellow banner, chose LibChat and transcrpits. Click on the eye for a transcript pop out that is easy to cut and past.
• Include transcripts in Quick Referrals.
• Set a chat reminder to turn your volume on/off before and after your shift.
• When directing someone in Barton, be sure to direct the user to the “shelf location” link.
• Have the MIT Roles, Directory, or Aleph up when on chat for easy access
• Don’t forget about the privileges page! From PS Docs à search the index for privileges to get here: https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/x/ewaNAg don’t forget to scroll all the way to the side.
• Sponsored account information is right under the MIT Other status: https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/x/ewaNAg and the Manual Registration page: https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/x/7SAHAw

Tina lead a discussion about combining Reference documentation. Discussion points include:

• Consider combining reference and public services documentation
• It would be great to note (by type, color) when something can be copy and pasted and sent to user or when something is just for us internally
• Maybe chat documentation and the rest of reference documentation doesn’t need to be combined because it is a different type of documentation. Chat is quick reference and we don’t want to wade through everything else to get the quick answer we need.
• More thoughts? Feel free to send Tina and email tinachan@mit.edu

Open discussion

• Handshake between chat staff? Do what is best for you. If you want to say hi, say hi. If you don’t, that’s cool, too.
• Logging on 5 minutes before your shifts gives the previous chat staffer an opportunity to share any relevant news with you.
• You are responsible for chats that come in during your hour of chat.
• Closing the chat on a silent user? Use your judgment. If you feel the conversation is over, feel free to close the window. If you feel the conversation is not over, but you haven’t heard from them in a while, remind them they can chat us again and let them know you are closing the box. 

September 1, 2016
1230PM and 3PM sessions

1. Slack Channel Slack channel is going well. Thanks to those that are using it. Courtney encourages everyone to use it and no question is too small! Please don’t be shy!

2. Roles Database Everyone has access to MIT Roles now. You can look up chat users with kerberos, email, or name. The link is here and on the guide: http://libguides.mit.edu/c.php?g=176380&p=1160573

Reasons to use Roles:It’s great to get context about the person chatting you, to see where they are coming from (status and department). Lisa said, “okay, I see this person is a student from Chemical Engineering.”

It can also helps to fill in the gaps when someone is having trouble with access or mentions e-control by name—if you use Roles and find they are “other” you can feel confident sending a Quick Referral (QR) form. Sometimes people are not always in the people directory, so Roles is a more definitive way to look someone up to determine if they are an MIT community member. Note: if anyone ever mentions e-control specifically, you should submit a QR regardless of their status, etc.

3. Missed Chats and Waiting Times. Wait time—this is the time from when the user initiates the chat window (through the pop up or the box on the Ask Us page) to when the chat staff clicks “answer”. The Reference team decided that 30 seconds is an appropriate waiting time for this measure. Courtney will periodically spot check these, but understands there are various reasons why a waiting time will exceed 30 seconds. For instance, if chat staff have their volume turned down and are not on the Chat tab of their browser, or if chat staff have multiple chats going on at the same time, it could take a bit to answer another chat.

Missed Chats are designated by Springshare when a chat staff doesn’t pick up the chat. The majority of these are most likely instances where the user mistakenly initiated chat and then quickly closed the box.

Don’t take either of those too seriously. It is just a way for us to spot check the service to make sure there aren’t any issues that need to resolved with the platform, technology, training or staffing model.

4. Moving out of chat unnecessarily It is not a best practice to move a transaction out of chat unnecessarily. Users initiate chat for a reason and to the best of our ability we should try to honor that choice.

There are always exceptions to this best practice and you should use your judgment. Some reasons to move from chat to email, phone, or etc may include but are not limited to: a user seems stressed and it having trouble using chat to communicate, the user requests the info be sent via email, or you and the user are experiencing connection issues.

5. Borrow Direct/WorldCat/Illaid flow chart: image and PDF available here: http://libguides.mit.edu/c.php?g=176380&p=3685491  The flowchart is intended to help you map what the user is describing to specific steps in each of the services so you can better help them.

6. Open discussion regarding the training formats:

• WebEx might be an option
• Chat tips may be sufficient
• In person trainings are preferred by many
• Chat staff would like to contribute to upcoming training agendas
• 2 gatherings per years is a good frequency
• The title might not be right? Forum, Staff meeting, Refresher
• might consider changing the location to promote more discussion
• consider a flipped classroom meeting with a pre-assignment
• Courtney at an ACE meeting?
• Chat topics covered in CoP?
• allow for more candid discussion and sharing
• in person meeting allow us to see staff we don’t normally see.
• Like DIRC location because there are computers to take notes.
• Provide summaries of these trainings and bold the main points

Other comments made:

• Keep providing the chat tips
• Many issues discussed are not just in Chat
• Would not mind communication about ways to improve on individual level.
• We should spread the love with requests for coverage
• IDLA’s lack of schedule at the beginning of term is an issue sometimes.

7. Announcements:

• Chat is not for library staff to ask questions. We haven’t officially said this outside of ACE but we are going to keep our eye on this issue. If a staff member chats you, feel free to let them know politely that you need to keep the channel open for users or if you aren’t comfortable doing that you can let Courtney know.
• On that note, be professional and nice when you notice a new chatter is a library staff member—they may be just demo-ing the service for a class or orientation :)