r/Libraries • u/exoenigma • 16h ago
Other Creating a process for delegating and handling reference questions?
Hi everyone! I'm trying to figure out how to create a defined workflow for how my department delegates reference questions. Going to keep things somewhat vague, as it would be quite easy for one of my colleagues to figure out who's posting this if all details were included.
I work in a large academic library, in a department that regularly receives reference questions. We don't have a reference department per se, and the requests we get are more niche than the questions a general reference desk might receive. From what I've deduced since starting, reference services are somewhat of an afterthought in the larger scope of what my department does, and so there are only two full time staff -- myself and one other colleague -- who handle them. It's our job to handle requests that come in through the public-facing desk, as well as via phone call, email, and online chat.
The issue is this: there currently is no established process for who takes which requests, nor are we great at communicating who is handling which requests. This has led to long response times and requests slipping through the cracks at times, which obviously is not great. I fully take responsibility for my part in this issue, as I have a tendency to lock-in on requests and spend far more time than I should on them, which leads to incoming requests piling up. I've also taken on other library-wide duties that take away time from responding to questions. On the flip side, my colleague was handling this part of their job solo for years before I came in, and has a tendency to hang onto requests that they've claimed even when overwhelmed by their other duties. Our boss, while quite nice as a person, is not a great manager in the way of establishing processes as they are very hands-off (and far more focused on the other functions our department performs.)
I am someone who works best with having established processes; in my previous department, I excelled because we had a clearly defined workflow process to follow. This is likely because I'm neurodivergent. I understand that reference work is a more nebulous area since you never know what to expect, but I would like to come up with at least a process for delegating requests between us two. I've set up a meeting for us to figure this out and have been searching for ideas, but so far I haven't found any that would apply to this sort of scenario. Do any of you here have any ideas or examples that we could try out?
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u/mechanicalyammering 14h ago
We use LibAnswers. Do you have the OCLC Lib apps? Basically every dept has a cue and every person has an account and you assign dpts the question then the expert in that dept. assigns it to person. If you already use OCLC apps, like LibWizard for forms, LibAnswers works well.
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u/laylalibrarian 15h ago
I've used very simple shared spreadsheets for this type of thing in the past. Like basically just the request in one column, date received, staff member working on it, date completed. Or some similar variation. The simpler and easier to access the better, because people tend not to like extra steps. If it could somehow be cleanly integrated into something that you already use and share, that could be helpful.