IM Your Question. Get Live Help!
Working in your office or at home and have a reference question? Don’t get up—research help is at your fingertips! Novanet libraries across Nova Scotia offer a popular online chat reference service called Live Help, and it’s available at a library website near you.
The Live Help service was started in 2003, when it ran for 19 hours a week and was staffed by 5 volunteer librarians from 2 Novanet institutions. Since then use of the service has grown exponentially. Last academic year, the service ran 63 hours per week, with 23 library staff from 7 institutions answering a total of 3,240 questions online. Most commonly asked are questions like “How do I find this article?” as well as queries about access to electronic resources and doing catalogue searches.
Live Help uses an IM chat system created specifically for online reference. You’ll see the chat option on our website at http://library.stfx.ca. Hours of service appear beside the widget—if there’s no one online in your hour of need, just leave a message (be sure to include your email address), and we’ll get back to you. And remember—there’s no such thing as a silly question!
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Have a question now? Try the Live Help service.
