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About Live Chat Reference
About Live Chat
How Does it Work?
Software Requirements
Technical Problems
About Live Chat
This service will provide up to 20 minutes of live chat service in order to obtain as much on-line information as possible regarding your question.
The main focus of this service is to provide quick information and referrals using online sources including our online databases, the Catalog and the Internet. If the question cannot be answered within the guidelines, a referral will be offered to an appropriate reference service.
This service is available to KCLS cardholders only. If you do not have a card,
you can apply for one on our website, or in any
of our community libraries.
GET YOUR PIN
Our Ask a Librarian live chat service will require a PIN and KCLS library
card number. For questions about your PIN, call AnswerLine at
425-462-9600 or 800-462-9600. If you wish to change or reset your PIN, you must
present a photo ID in person at your local branch.
KCLS provides legal and medical resources and referral information. KCLS does
not provide legal or medical advice, or have lawyers or doctors on staff who answer
these questions.
This service is available 24/7. KCLS reference providers are responsible for providing
coverage during regular KCLS service hours. After hours coverage is provided by
professional librarians from Tutor.com's Librarians by Request service.
Rules of Conduct
The KCLS Rules of Conduct, which fosters mutual respect and courtesy, will be observed during all calls.
Confidentiality
Transcripts from sessions will be kept on a secure server and will be used for analysis only. Consistent with the library system’s policies on Privacy, all patron information is considered confidential.
You are about to enter a live, online reference session with a professional
librarian. The librarian will "chat" with you, and will send answers
to your questions, or sources of information, which may involve sending websites.
To start the session: Enter your name, your library card number,
and your question in the column on the right side of the screen. Then click
the connect button.
You will automatically receive a welcome message. The librarian may ask you
some clarifying questions. Chat messages from the librarian will appear on the
right side of your screen. To send a chat message, type your message in the
box, and then press the “Enter” key. Web pages that we send to you
will appear on the left side. Typing a new web address in the address bar
of your browser will cause you to be disconnected from our service.
If you are having problems getting into databases after you are asked for
your library card number, the problem may be a result of a firewall, either
on your computer or on your network. If you have firewall software running on
your computer, you may need to enable URL referring and/or add database URLs
as trusted sites. If you are on a network, you will need to contact your network
administrator. You can also gain access by temporarily disabling your firewall
software.
To end the session: When you’ve finished or would like to end the session type "goodbye", and click the “End Call” button.
An evaluation form will pop up—please take a minute to complete this survey, and click the submit button at the end of the form. Your evaluation of our service is important and we appreciate you taking the time to fill it out.
Transcripts: When you end the session you will see a summary
of the websites that were sent to you at the bottom of the chat window. You
will also receive a Call ID number so you can access a transcript of your session
later from our website. Be sure to note down the session ID number. To access
your transcript, go to our live chat entry page and scroll down the frame on
the right side of the screen, where you will find the “Old Transcripts”
icon. The transcript will be saved for 30 days. You may need to disable any
popup blocker software in order to access previous transcripts.
Click the “Exit” button to exit your session.
We recommend using a 28.8k modem or better to use this service. Once connected,
we may send you pages from the web or take you into an online database and show
you how to search by co-browsing. This collaboration software is not yet supported
by all versions of browsers.
The collaboration software we will be using in our virtual reference session
works best in an Internet Explorer Browser (5.0 and above) on a PC.
If you are using AOL, we recommend that after connecting, you use an IE browser for the session (to download the latest version of Internet Explorer go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1e1550cb-5e5d-48f5-b02b-20b602228de6&DisplayLang=en and click the download button).
If you are using Netscape, some versions will pop up a message advising you to change the java setting in order to login and chat with a librarian. It also will provide full instructions for the steps to be taken to enable java or disable it, as the case may be -- depending upon the Netscape version.
If you are using a Macintosh computer, your session will downshift to a more
basic interaction than one that could be achieved with a PC; however, you will
still be able to collaborate with a librarian. Macintosh users should use Safari
on Mac OS X machines or Netscape on Mac OS 9 machines or below for best results.
Use of Internet Explorer on Macs, may result in connection problems.
If our live chat software does not support your system, you still may submit
your question to our email reference service, Ask
a Librarian, and we will get back to you within 24 hours (excluding weekends
and holidays).
If you’re not sure if you are connected, type a message and send it. If you don’t get a response within a few minutes, you are not connected and you’ll need to log in again.
If a Web page blocks the chat area on your browser, please use your browser’s back button to resume talking with the librarian.
During your session, please follow only links within the left side of your
window. Typing a new web address in the address bar of your browser will
cause you to be disconnected from our service.
If you are having problems getting into databases after you are asked for
your library card number, the problem may be a result of a firewall, either
on your computer or on your network. If you have firewall software running on
your computer, you may need to enable URL referring and/or add database URLs
as trusted sites. If you are on a network, you will need to contact your network
administrator. You can also gain access by temporarily disabling your firewall
software.
If you are having problems, you can call the Answer Line at (425) 462-9600
or 1-800-462-9600.
Please see our Software Requirements section for browser recommendations.