What is the Ask a Librarian mobile app for patrons?

Ask A Librarian is a mobile app that connects patrons to all of your library's reference services, including chat, texting, email, and frequently asked questions. Any library or library consortium can be included in Ask a Librarian at no charge. Just email us a request for your free listing.

Ask a Librarian was created with love by Nub Games, Inc., the creators of LibraryH3lp, in conjunction with Chatstaff, LLC.

Patrons

Patrons can download the app for free from:

• Google Play App Store
• Apple App Store

Libraries

Once your free listing is created and you have a login, you'll see your organizational information.  If desired, you can provide a custom avatar image link.

Under your organization, you'll create and publish services.  A service is a grouping of virtual reference offerings. For some libraries, a service will represent a branch or campus.  Other libraries might want to use a service to represent a department like ILL, circulation, etc.  Service is purposely generic so that libraries can present themselves in a way that makes the most sense to their patrons.   

On each service's edit page, you can flesh out info like phone numbers, email addresses, "about" info, etc. and link to a custom avatar.  You can publish/hide the entry in the mobile app by checking/unchecking the checkbox near the top of the service edit page and saving.  It takes around 5-10 minutes or so for saved changes to show up in the app.

When promoting the app to your patrons, you can point to the Ask a Librarian website that contains the download links to the app plus screenshots and an overview of the app's functionality.  Feel free to reuse any images or links you find there in your own materials.  And if you'd like to include the Ask a Librarian app logo in any promotions, you can download it here. We also have larger images available if needed for better resolution.

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