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Ask a Librarian is a free online service that allows Floridians to chat live with a librarian for immediate assistance. A trained information professional can guide you to the answers you need in minutes rather than wasting hours navigating hundreds of unhelpful and irrelevant web sites. More than 90 libraries statewide collaborate to provide this service to their patrons and the patrons of other participating libraries. Ask a Librarian is a joint project of the College Center for Library Automation and the Tampa Bay Library Consortium. Ask a Librarian is funded as part of the Florida Electronic Library by a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant.
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What is Ask a Librarian Mobile?
Ask a Librarian is now optimized for your handheld device. The e-mail portion of our service is available now. Visit our mobile interface http://www.askalibrarian.org/mobile, then choose your library from the list. E-mail your question anytime, and a librarian from your local library will answer you via e-mail. We are working on adding more features, including a live chat service.
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How does Ask a Librarian work?
When you click on the chat button, your question enters a queue for the on-duty librarians. Librarians answer questions in the order they receive them. Typically, depending on the expected traffic, between two and six librarians staff the Ask a Librarian desk during the hours we are available for live chat.
When the librarian accepts your question, you are able to chat one-on-one with that librarian while he or she helps you find what you need by guiding you through the myriad of resources available. The librarian might 'co-browse' these resources with you. Co-browsing* is the ability to share or co-navigate resources in a Web browser, which the librarian may do while chatting with you.
If the librarian cannot answer your question during the session, he or she may suggest other sources for you to try that cannot be accessed in the online environment or ask for your contact information so he or she or your local library may follow up with you.
Once the session ends, you will be given the option to view and print your transcript or e-mail the session to yourself for later use. The transcript will provide links to all of the resources you visited during the session.
(*Co-browsing requires users to enter the chat session using broadband, with a Windows Operating System and Microsoft Internet Explorer.)
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When are librarians available to answer my question?
We are available via live chat 10 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday Eastern Time. E-mail assistance is available 24/7 except during scheduled maintenance.
Holiday Schedule Live Chat E-mail Veteran's Day November 11-12, 2007 
Thanksgiving November 22-23, 2007 Downtime for upgrade
December 16, 2007
6:00am - 1:00pm EST
Service resumes December 16, 2007
1:00pm - Midnight EST
Winter Holiday December 23 - 25, 2007 Holiday Live Chat Hours
10:00am - 5:00pm EST
December 26 - 30, 2007 New Year's Holiday December 31, 2007 - January 1, 2008 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Holiday
January 21, 2008 Memorial Day Holiday May 26, 2008 Fourth of July Holiday July 4, 2008 -
Am I talking to a real person?
Yes. When you use Ask a Librarian, a real Florida librarian is assisting you.
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How many librarians are on duty?
We typically have two to four librarians monitoring questions during the hours that we are open for live chat.
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How long will it take for someone to answer my question?
It should only take a few minutes for a librarian to say hello after you send your question, although your wait time could increase if we receive an unusually high number of questions. We answer questions in the order we receive them. Please be patient, and we will get to your question as soon as possible. The length of your conversation with the librarian will depend on the complexity of your question and how detailed of an answer you would like. An average chat session lasts 10 to 20 minutes.
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Can the librarian on duty tell me if I have any overdue books?
Probably not. Because Ask a Librarian is a statewide service, you could be speaking with a librarian from any of our 95 participating libraries. If the librarian is not from your local library, he or she will not have access to your personal library record.
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Can the librarian on duty tell me how to login to my account or provide me with my pin number?
Probably not. Because Ask a Librarian is a statewide service, you could be speaking with a librarian from any of our 95 participating libraries. If the librarian is not from your local library, he or she will not have access to your personal library record.
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Why should I use Ask a Librarian instead of a search engine like Google or Yahoo?
Librarians are experts at sorting through information and finding what you need from a credible source. With over 100 million sites on the Internet, searching on Google and Yahoo can return millions of Web sites filled with information that's not quite what you were looking for. And often, those sites have questionable authority. With Ask a Librarian, you have a professional to help evaluate resources, access to great resources hidden from search engines, and access to full text journals and books. Studies prove that having a librarian assist you with your research can help you get better grades and save you time. Librarians will not only help you find information but will also help organize and evaluate that information. With so much information available, it's important to sort out fact from fiction, and librarians can help. Ask a Librarian brings this valuable resource straight to you - when and where you need it.
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Should I try to save or write down all of the Web site addresses you show me during our session?
It's not necessary. When your chat session is over, you will have the option of viewing or saving your transcript session, which will include all of the Web site addresses your librarian suggested.
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What are the minimum system requirements for me to use Ask a Librarian?
Your Ask a Librarian session, like all web-based applications, responds more quickly if you have a broadband connection. Using a Windows operating system and Microsoft Internet Explorer browser will allow you to enter the service in the enhanced version. All other Ask a Librarian functionality is available with any contemporary operating system or browser. For more detailed information, go to our 'How It Works'.
Ask a Librarian is funded under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, administered by the Florida Department of State, State Library and Archives of Florida.
Ask a Librarian is a service of the Florida Electronic Library .