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A patron accesses the
service through a link on the library’s homepage. One of the options in the library’s patron
view of the service is to open a chat session, which the patron does. This action causes notification to be sent
to a librarian’s chat monitor. The
librarian sees the patron-initiated session and accesses it in much the same
way she would pick up a ringing phone.
The librarian may be from of a single institution or representing a
group of libraries (a consortium). The
librarian may search the local knowledge base first. She may look at Web sites or consult
databases. She may call other
librarians or institutions, look up facts in ready reference books, or
consult her own knowledge on the subject. She may pull information from all
of these resources in order to provide the patron with the most authoritative
and up-to-date information.
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