Enquire is staffed 24/7. UK library service staff the service from 9am-5pm Monday-Saturday. OCLC’s 24/7 network covers other hours, including public holidays.

Staff Rota 

The national rota, is scheduled six months in advance.

Rotas can be flexible to suit local capacity levels and needs. There will, for example, be more than one library service on duty at any one time so a single member of staff from a smaller library service can take it in turns to pick up questions with other library services. Please talk to us to find the right levels of participation to suit you.

We ask that you notify OCLC Support as soon as possible, and with at least a week’s notice, if there is a problem with the rota on a particular day.

Staffing requirements

During the shift, the library will need to have at least one staff member logged into the service, but they can be doing other things on the computer while waiting for questions to come through. An alert box will pop up on the screen and there is also an audible alert, if the machine is equipped with a sound card or speakers. 

It is easier if the librarian is behind the scenes and not having to deal with face-to-face enquiries at the same time.

Working in Teams 

Enquire teams can be created in a number of ways:

• One-library team: made up from staff of the information services department.
• Multi-library team: made up from staff from several branches, all logged on at the same time and taking questions sequentially.
• Referral team: a core team, plus a wider team located in different departments or branches to which specialist questions can be transferred
• Integrated team: some libraries have standalone enquiry teams which receive questions from email, phone, text, chat, and from other departments in the service.