What if there are lots of questions at once?

Answer

Librarians are expected to answer as many chats at a time as they are comfortable with. If one chat is all that you can focus on at a given time, or you are engaged with a more challenging question that requires more attention, then you do not need to answer any other chats that come in while you're working on the current chat. You are not required to answer (or work on) more than one chat at a time. Unanswered chats will roll over to our chat partners in the California Community College group and the Global Chat Cooperative after 20 seconds of being unanswered by a local Los Rios librarian.

If you are comfortable with helping more than one person at a time, please prioritize the chat messages. For example, if you’ve been helping someone for a long time and a new chat comes through asking a quick question about textbooks, please explain to the individual with whom you've been working that you need to address a quick question and that you will return to help them.

If you are answering a ticket and a new chat message pops up, please hold off on answering the ticket so that you can help the person on chat. Tickets are answered via email, and should not be prioritized over someone with an immediate question. If you are helping both a professor and a student, be sure to prioritize the student first. You can explain the situation to the professor, if needed.