The second most popular way of aksing for research help (after face-to-face) is by e-mail. Regardless of which technology patrons use to contact the library, it's helpful to get their e-mail address if possible. This makes it much easier to follow up if you find something else useful to their enquiry after theiy're no longer connected. 

E-mailing documents

One of the services we offer to distance students or staff/students/faculty who are having access problems is to send PDFs of documents that they are unable to obtain themselves. This could be because:

1. They're having problems logging in from off campus and have an urgent need. 
2. The information is available in print or microfiche only.

Note that the amount that may be sent is governed by Fair Dealing (typically a chapter or 10% from a book or one article from a journal issue).

To ensure that we're sending materials to someone from TWU, we will only send PDFs to mytwu or twu e-mail addresses.

Making Print Copies

• Where a journal is available only in print, scan the article in question to a USB drive using the copier/scanner.
• E-mail it as an attachment to the person who requested it.

Copying from Microforms

• The printer on the microform machines no long prints, so you'll need to photograph the pages of the article as they are displayed on the reader, using a cell phone or digital camera.

Alloway library's chat reference service is AskAway, a province-wide service provided by all the academic post-secondary libraries in BC. Two TWU librarians cover shifts on this service. Librarians also monitor the TWU feed on AskAway while they're at the Research Help Desk.​

Telephone is useful for only brief, basic reference questions. 

If necessary, transfer the call to the on-call reference librarian. 

When sending links to library material that requires proxy authentication, it's important to ensure:

1. That it's a durable link rather than a link generated on the fly by the server at the other end. It's not always clear whether a link will expire or endure, but most links in the address bar of your browser when searching a database will expire.
2. In cases where it is a durable link, be sure that the proxy information is included. This is particularly important if you're accessing an article from on campus. In this case, because you're on the TWU system, authentication is already done and many of the links will not display the proxy information. If you are preparing the link for someone who will be accessing it from off campus, it's important to include the proxy information.
3. This is an important step to remember when troubleshooting problems faculty members are having with links in MyCourses.
4. The proxy URL is - https://twu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=

Example:

1. A temporary link from an article from an EBSCOhost database starts with - http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/
2. A permanent link starts with - https://twu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=