When introducing AskAway to your students, please:

• Encourage students to provide correct e-mail addresses or no e-mail address: An e-mail address is not required to use AskAway. However, if a question cannot be answered immediately, it is sent to librarians to be answered by e-mail. If a student provides a false e-mail address, the librarian will spend time answering the question, only to find that answer cannot be delivered to the student. The student will never receive an answer to the question.
  
  
• Encourage students to stay with the librarian long enough to get their questions answered: The average AskAway session lasts at least 12-15 minutes. The librarian will spend time clarifying exactly what information the student needs, and showing them where to find the information. All of this takes time. If students do not have at least 12-15 minutes to spend with the librarian, they should wait to use the service until they do have that amount of time.
  
  
• Encourage the students to read the opening screens: On the screen where the student enters the question, there is a lot of information about things they cannot do in their browser while in a session with a librarian (like use the “Back” or “Forward” buttons). Reading this information will help them have a better experience.
  
  If you would like to encourage students to use AskAway for a specific homework assignment:

• Please consider notifying us ahead of time: Giving us some lead-time gives our librarians a chance to research your topic and find the best available resources on that topic. These resources can then be shared with other librarians answering questions (AskAway is staffed by librarians all over the country!) so your students will always get the best answers possible.
  
  
• If you are going to have all of your students use AskAway at once, it is important for us to know about it at least 2 weeks ahead of time: The service is staffed by librarians around the country, but is normally staffed only to accommodate expected traffic. Having 20-30 additional questions come in at once can mean longer wait times and less time for the librarian to spend helping your students. We may be able to add staff to accommodate your session. We can also schedule a “meeting room” session in which one librarian can show all of your students helpful resources on your topic.
  
  
• Keep in mind that AskAway may not be the best resource for a particular assignment: AskAway is designed primarily to help students find resources using the Internet. Believe it or not, some questions are still better answered with books and other print resources. For example, ancient history and other historical topics are often better researched with print resources in your local public library. If you aren’t sure if your topic is a good one for AskAway, please contact your neighborhood librarian.