Answering Patron Inquiries

NOTE: Before scanning materials for an inquiry, check the Archive drive to see whether something has already been scanned! If you don’t have access to the drive, contact the Digital Archivist.

When a patron contacts Spec and their inquiry is detailed, answering their questions or requests may be straightforward.

However, sometimes a patron request isn’t very clear. In those cases, asking for clarification or even asking more questions about the subject might help narrow down a scope of research.

Then there are times when a patron has a very broad topic and doesn’t quite know what they’re looking for. In this situation it might be beneficial to send the patron some How-To PDFs. That way patrons can do their own search, and then contact us with the materials they’d like to view.

When prompted to find a digital assets, see whether the finding aid record includes the file names. Look for these in the Archive Drive. Ask colleagues for help if issues arise.

Example:

finding aid with digital file name included

Directing a Patron to Use Archives West

Example language:

Make sure links work

We would be glad to help you access any materials in our archives that pertain to your research. To begin, you can review the finding aids for our collections by visiting Archives West, the consortium of regional archives we belong to. If in your search you find any materials related to [research topic], please send us an email to make an appointment to see the materials. We would need to know the collection number and the folders or boxes you want to see.

It might be worth expanding your search in Archives West to other repositories in the region. You can do so by changing the filter at the top of the search box.

We recently produced a tutorial to introduce the basics of using Archives West. It can be found here: https://youtu.be/P_aH4S3MZrg?si=qrvhYn3daUkdr0lt.

Please reach out if we can be of further assistance.