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Re: Increased e-mail and research requests



My favorite argument for supporting remote contact reference service came
from a World War II article touting the patriotic benefit of not making
patrons use up that rationed gasoline and rubber to come to the library.
Don't let a bad service policy help Hitler.

The GREAT JOY of email reference is the ease with which you can conduct
solid query negotiation at a distance.  At the end of a question I often
find I have been involved in multiple (and useful) email interchanges that
would have been terribly burdensome to conduct by surface mail.

Or to be cynical, if you just can think up enough questions of your own in
response to a patron's question, you can put off answering until you finish
that big processing job stacked all over your office.

Steven


Steven Brown
Head, University Archives & Records Management
Hargrett Library
Main Library
University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia  30602
sabrown@arches.uga.edu

Archives:  http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/archives/index.html
Records:  http://www.libs.uga.edu/recman/www.html

"I am sorry to hear of the removal of Prof. M.  I wish him well for what he
has been, - and for his present merits - but as his principles are
contagious, it will be best for him I think to go where they can do no harm
as in Georgia he will find Jacobins formed to his hand - and who are past
being polluted."

 -  Jedidiah Morse on the departure of Joisah Meigs from Yale to assume the
presidency of the University of Georgia, 1801.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Melanie I. Sturgeon" <msturgeo@LIB.AZ.US>
To: <ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 11:56 AM
Subject: Increased e-mail and research requests


> I think we can all agree that e-mail requests have increased tremendously
> over the last two years and that this is simply another way for patrons to
> talk to an archivist.
>
> Patrons who send requests via the US Postal Service usually expect that
> they will have a response in a week or two. However, one of the problems
we
> see over and over again with our e-mail requests is the fact that if the
> patron sent the request in the morning, they often think they should have
> the answer by that afternoon (scanned and delivered) and become extremely
> impatient with us if they don't. (This is spite of the fact that we have a
> two day turnaround and a small staff) We respond to all e-mail
requests--we
> have a research request form on our web site that requires an address, but
> not all researchers use it. We instituted the e-request form because so
> many researchers ask for research and then don't give us their address in
> spite of repeated attempts on our part to obtain this information from
> them. For those patrons who do not use our e-request form and who ask for
> research but do not provide a mailing address, we now notify them that
> before we will look up anything for them, they must send us an address.
> Most respond quickly. For those who do not, this step has cut down
> considerably on the piles of completed research and no where to send them.
>
> Melanie Sturgeon
> Melanie I. Sturgeon, Ph.D.
> Director, History and Archives Division
> Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records
> phone 602-542-4159
> fax: 602-542-4402
> www.lib.az.us
>
> A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!
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> Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>