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Please don't resubmit your requests
People requests articles and obituaries from our library all the time, since we have the local and some national newspapers.
When people go to our website and fill out the form for a request, the instructions say: You should get a response to your e-mail within 48-72 hours, excluding weekends and holidays. Please note that some requests may require additional research time. If you are working against a deadline, you may get a faster response by visiting or calling your local library or by calling...
So, July 22 was a Thur. some guy submit a request for an obit. One problem is he does't give exact date of death. So that requires on our part "additional research time." Either we look it up in ancestory.com or we have to request from another dept. to look up on the Texas Death Roll the date of death.
My dept. has 4 people working on articles/obit requests.
July 26, the same guy resends his request. He doesn't even bother to say in his request, "I requested this on July 22...." And I guess he doesn't bother to read that weekends are excluded. But he does the math to know that 72 hours is 3 days. So three days, not counting weekends, from July 22 to July 26, equals 3 days. So I guess he is either imaging the worst (we are wiping our butts with his request) or the best (it got lost) At least say you are resubmitting your request.
I find his resubmitted request on July 26, Monday. I see latter another cw worked on the first request and sent a response July 27. Yesterday I finally get to the request. I go to google docs to enter the info on the work-in-progress, and for the one time this redundancy helps out, I see that someone already did this request.
So I was this-close to redoing this stupid obit. That takes up at least 20 min. of time.
They're dead, what's the rush?
A woman submits a request, on July 16, for an obit of her sister, whose date of death is Nov. 4, 1969*. Added to her request: A status courtesy call is asked for since I would like to have this information promptly especially since this person was my sister.
An email address is included in the request, so why want us to phone? You never check your email? Are you sitting by the phone 24/7? And a phone call will cost us. No obit was found. I wasn't the one doing the request so I don't know if the person was called, but she was emailed.
Today I find in the inbox a request, submitted by the first person's daughter: I'm so sorry. I believe my mother got it wrong. My Aunt xxxx died on November 10, 1967.
Ah crud. We really should charge people for doing the research, even if we don't find an article and/or obit. You know how much we do charge when we find something? $2 a citation and $1 a page.
I did find an obit, and I'm thinking the worse of the person, like "you don't even remember your sister's date of death?" Granted, could be the person was too young to remember her sister, or she has dementia. But the dead sister died in 1969 or 1967. Why need the obit promptly?
*I changed the details.
People requests articles and obituaries from our library all the time, since we have the local and some national newspapers.
When people go to our website and fill out the form for a request, the instructions say: You should get a response to your e-mail within 48-72 hours, excluding weekends and holidays. Please note that some requests may require additional research time. If you are working against a deadline, you may get a faster response by visiting or calling your local library or by calling...
So, July 22 was a Thur. some guy submit a request for an obit. One problem is he does't give exact date of death. So that requires on our part "additional research time." Either we look it up in ancestory.com or we have to request from another dept. to look up on the Texas Death Roll the date of death.
My dept. has 4 people working on articles/obit requests.
July 26, the same guy resends his request. He doesn't even bother to say in his request, "I requested this on July 22...." And I guess he doesn't bother to read that weekends are excluded. But he does the math to know that 72 hours is 3 days. So three days, not counting weekends, from July 22 to July 26, equals 3 days. So I guess he is either imaging the worst (we are wiping our butts with his request) or the best (it got lost) At least say you are resubmitting your request.
I find his resubmitted request on July 26, Monday. I see latter another cw worked on the first request and sent a response July 27. Yesterday I finally get to the request. I go to google docs to enter the info on the work-in-progress, and for the one time this redundancy helps out, I see that someone already did this request.
So I was this-close to redoing this stupid obit. That takes up at least 20 min. of time.
They're dead, what's the rush?
A woman submits a request, on July 16, for an obit of her sister, whose date of death is Nov. 4, 1969*. Added to her request: A status courtesy call is asked for since I would like to have this information promptly especially since this person was my sister.
An email address is included in the request, so why want us to phone? You never check your email? Are you sitting by the phone 24/7? And a phone call will cost us. No obit was found. I wasn't the one doing the request so I don't know if the person was called, but she was emailed.
Today I find in the inbox a request, submitted by the first person's daughter: I'm so sorry. I believe my mother got it wrong. My Aunt xxxx died on November 10, 1967.
Ah crud. We really should charge people for doing the research, even if we don't find an article and/or obit. You know how much we do charge when we find something? $2 a citation and $1 a page.
I did find an obit, and I'm thinking the worse of the person, like "you don't even remember your sister's date of death?" Granted, could be the person was too young to remember her sister, or she has dementia. But the dead sister died in 1969 or 1967. Why need the obit promptly?
*I changed the details.
- they may not even charge you. It's $10 for a copy of anything they do find. 
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