Shared Follow-up Policy

Shared follow-up is an important part of the AskAway patron and librarian experience. 

Questions are usually referred to your library for follow-up because the librarian who initially handled the question could not completely answer your patron’s request during the live session.  Questions may also be referred to your library because of the expertise expressed in your library’s profile.

It is imperative that questions that are referred to your library for follow-up are addressed in a timely manner.  If you are unable to answer the question, you may refer it to another institution in the cooperative better suited to answer the question. 

Procedure for shared follow-up

A library will have one week (7 days) to answer a question referred to it for follow-up.

The listserv will not be notified weekly of individual questions that are old enough to be answered by any librarian in the cooperative.  Instead the cooperative will be informed by listserv that any question that is more than one week (7 days) old can be answered by any librarian in the cooperative. 

Questions that are in shared follow-up for more than one month will be closed

If a library consistently does not complete its follow-up questions a letter describing the problem may be sent to the library’s director.

While these steps are the general procedure that will be followed the Illinois State Library, and the State Virtual Reference Committee reserve the right to alter these steps when it is determined best for the cooperative.