SHARING THE BUSINESS FAQ

In 2004 the Lippincott Library began supporting FAQ service for other libraries with the goal of sharing contributions to the database of questions and answers. Columbia University's Watson Library of Business & Economics was the first partner. Columbia Business School reference librarians edited the database of questions to reflect Columbia's environment and user population and Penn modified the web front end, customizing the look and web address according to Columbia's specifications. Penn continues to host the site. To try out versions of the Business FAQ developed for other libraries, click on the links below.

In addition to Columbia, eight other business libraries now have access to the FAQ. They are Dartmouth, Emory, MIT, Michigan, NYU, Purdue, Stanford, and Yale.

ATTRACTIVE FEATURES FOR BUSINESS LIBRARIES

1. Penn shares not only the software but also the contents of the Lippincott database (the Q&As) with the other institutions. This allows the partner schools to rapidly make their own version of the database available to the public by modifying existing questions.

2. Whenever a new question is added or a question is modified by any of the Library partners, all the other institutions are aware of this and can adopt the Q&A for their own database.

3. A statistical reporter is part of the software. It helps staff track questions by category and also records “missed questions", that is questions entered for which we do not have an answer. This last feature provides feedback on the completeness of the database.

4. The database is simple to set up and operate. It requires very little intervention by the institutions' IT staff.