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Re: Increased e-mail and research requests



Whenever I get a really obtuse patron, I begin to
thicken my accent.  Pretty soon they cannot understand
a word I say, and they hang up.



--- Steven A Brown <sabrown@ARCHES.UGA.EDU> wrote:
> 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!
> >
> > 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>
>
> 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>


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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>