Questions involving personal information:
We will not look for neighbors next to an address. We have had the collection agencies ask for “who lives next to” a certain address. Reference USA does not provide accurate criss cross information and it could be wrong and/or dangerous to provide what information might be found. The answer to patrons is, “We do not have access to this information,” and “This request is outside the scope of our service”.
We will not access social networking sites to answer questions in TR for anything. We had a collection agency asking for personal opinions about a child’s page so they could decide if they would be successful getting money from the parents. Same answer. “This is beyond the scope of our service and I have to move on to the next patron.”
When patrons ask you to go to a website, be sure to Google it first and decide if it is appropriate.
When asked for business lookups we can say, “I’ll search in Reference USA and that is the only resource we can use.” You do not need to go to Google which often gives old and wrong information, or to the Secretary of State’s website. You may give out the Secretary of State’s phone number which is 512-463-5555.
Please avoid chatting with the patrons. Answer the question and then go to the next patron. Gratuitous conversation leaves other patrons unattended and is unfair to the other staff in TR.
The limit to questions per call is three, except we can do five shelf checks.
Please try to keep your calls within ten minutes. This is not a hard and fast rule, so use your judgement depending on the question, how busy we are in TR, etc.
Thank you,
Julia