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07

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.

Editing a librarian profile: name, title, pronouns, office, and bio; email, phone, chat link, and office hours; a photo upload; visibility and the linked staff account; and the profile's permanent link
A librarian profile. The subjects they cover are further down the same page.

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.
The detail page for Ancestry Library Edition, with a Need help with this? card for Ruth Castillo, the local history and genealogy librarian
Ancestry is tagged Genealogy & Local History, so the librarian who covers it appears beside it.

If nobody matches, the general help card from Settings → Public page 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.