Put a real person on every database page.
Subject librarians
Patrons who hit a wall should see a real person to ask. Publish librarian profiles, tie them to subjects, and the right card appears on the right pages.
Profiles
Under Librarians, add a name, title, photo, contact details, office hours, and a short bio. Tick the subjects they cover and mark them primary for subjects they own. Only filled-in fields are shown; email and phone become tap-to-call links.
Where cards appear
- On a database's detail page, under "Need help with this?", for librarians whose subjects match the database. Primaries sort first. Two are shown by default; the rest are one click away in the directory.
- On each subject's browse page.
- At
/librarians, grouped by subject.
If nobody matches, the general help card from Branding & settings appears instead. Patrons never see an empty box.
Overrides and self-editing
A database can name specific librarians regardless of subject, for cases like a genealogy specialist who owns Ancestry. Admins manage every profile. Link a profile to a staff account (under Visibility and account) and that person can edit their own card, including the subjects they cover, whatever their role; it's under My librarian profile in their account menu. Primary marks, visibility, and the linked account stay with admins. Hide a profile during leave instead of deleting it.