Recently, students at Endicott-St. John Middle School were researching a number of major decisions made by the United States Supreme Court. Because these students are familiar with the resources available from Whitman County Library's Web site, they immediately turned to the online librarian service called Ask Us 24/7 for help.
Ask Us 24/7 provides research assistance from a real live chat librarian any time, day or night and holidays. Multiple librarians work simultaneously in order to handle the traffic of Whitman County and the rest of Washington. Ninety-eight public and academic libraries cooperate in bringing Ask Us 24/7 to Washington residents, answering over 15,000 questions over the past year.
The expertise of these real librarians outperform Ask Jeeves or Google, which often gives you thousands of hits, much of it being useless information or coming from unreliable sources. Another great feature of Ask Us 24/7 is the co-browsing mechanism. As the librarian searches for information, your computer screen follows along. You'll learn exactly how and where the librarian found your answer. Co-browsing is a great way to learn the searching techniques and quality sources used by library professionals.
The great thing about Ask Us 24/7 is you can ask any question, complicated or simple. From legal or research questions to the latest tunes from Trapt, Ask Us 24/7 is the place to turn. Whitman County Library has offered this valuable service for the past eight years and Whitman County students like those from Endicott-St. John appreciate its value.
ASK US 24/7 funding is provided by The Library Services and Technology Act provided by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State and by the Whitman County Library. To access our service, visit www.whitco.lib.wa.us and click on the Ask Us 24/7 link.
Kristie Kirkpatrick is the director for the Whitman County Library.
