AskAway Sustainability

Background

AskAway is a well-established service that delivers value to member libraries, students across the province, and the post-secondary sector more broadly. To sustain AskAway and provide students with equitable access to research help 73 hours per week, participating libraries commit to three cost-sharing and collaborative staffing commitment models: Base Service Support Fees, Base Staffing Commitments, and Flexible Service Support Contributions. Aside from a temporary increase to the base staffing commitments in 2020-21, the AskAway commitment models have not changed in over ten years and are no longer meeting the needs of the service. 

To support service sustainability, the AskAway Advisory Committee formed the Commitment Models Review Working Group with a mandate to revisit the commitment models and present recommendations. Membership on the Working Group included representation from all five AskAway tiers, from each constituency group, and from various institutional roles. Between July 2024 and February 2025, the Working Group met regularly, consulted with participating libraries, surveyed other chat reference consortia, and analyzed service data to develop and present their recommendations. The Advisory Committee endorsed the recommendations as presented at their February 5, 2025 meeting. The recommendations were then approved by the BC ELN Steering Committee at their May 23, 2025 meeting.

Recommendations

Approved recommendations for immediate action

1. Discontinue volunteer hours and incorporate into base staffing commitments.
2. Review the flexible support contributions model, in consultation with the Administrative Centre including the BC ELN Executive Director.
3. Define proportional allocation of evening/weekend hours as a part of institutions’ base staffing commitment, with consideration for alternative commitments if an institution is unable to staff evening/weekend hours.
4. Increase base staffing commitment for each tier to maintain current service hours. If increases to base commitment hours are untenable for member institutions, a reduction in service hours will be considered.
5. Establish a working group or executive committee in 2025/26 to review the service support fees model and make recommendations in support of financial sustainability of the service, with an expectation that recommendations are 3 delivered by the end of 25/26, implementation work takes place during 26/27, and changes are enacted prior to 27/28.
    

To request a copy of the Working Group's final report, please contact the AskAway Admin Centre.

Implementation: Action Plan

The Advisory Committee will develop an action plan to implement the recommendations, with the goal of giving participating libraries at least one year's notice of any changes to the commitment models. This is a preliminary action plan and will be finalized by the Advisory Committee in summer 2025:

Implementation: Team

The Recommendations Implementation Team will implement the recommendations and deliver new commitment models to the Advisory Committee. The team is made-up of Advisory Committee members and Admin Centre staff in the following roles:

• AskAway Advisory Committee Member (Nicoletta Romano, University Canada West, Small Universities Representative) - Chair
• AskAway Advisory Committee Chair (Trish Rosseel, Douglas College)
• BC ELN Executive Director (Sunni Nishimura)
• AskAway Coordinator (Cristen Polley)

The team will begin meeting in July 2025.

Questions

If you have questions, please contact the AskAway Admin Centre and/or your representative on the AskAway Advisory Committee.