As much as we'd like to think otherwise, problems sometimes occur when trying to access the library's online resources. We encourage you to let us know when that happens. The following tips will help you give us the tools we need to best help you resolve that problem.
- Tell us about yourself
We'll need to know who you are so that we can look up your account to make sure that everything is ok with it. Sometimes problems are caused by the fact that an account has expired or has blocks on it. Also let us know if you're on campus or off campus, since sometimes the systems behave differently in those two contexts.
- Tell us exactly what you're trying to do
It doesn't help much to tell us that "the website isn't working" or "I can't log in." Those statements are simply too broad and could mean many different things. Instead, tell us exactly what resource you're trying to find. Give us the exact title and the author so that we can look it up on our end.
- Provide the exact steps that you followed
We won't know where the problem lies if you don't tell us exactly what you did when trying to access the resource. Start from the very beginning, and give us the full URLs for the pages that you accessed and what links you clicked on those pages.
- Tell us exactly what error messages you received
It's helpful if you send us a screenshot or copy and paste the text of error messages.
- Don't expect someone else to report the problem for you
Some students will tell their professors that they're experiencing a problem and expect the professor to take care of this with library staff. That approach seldom works well. The professor isn't necessarily the person who had the problem and so doesn't really know how to explain it. And no matter how well the problem is described to us, we almost certainly will have further questions. You're the only one who can answer those questions
