Ask ontario

Ask Ontario (askOntario, askON, ONdemande) is a realtime chat information service that connects residents of Ontario, Canada to staff at public, university, and college libraries across the province for instant-messaging-based reference help online. Funded by the Ministry of Culture, It was launched on January 31, 2008 by Knowledge Ontario to leverage the collective resources of provincial libraries in different sectors, and to foster information literacy by helping Ontarians to find authoritative digital information and improve their online search skills.

Using chat, askON staff provide research guidance and help users navigate the Internet, their library’s services, and other online resources, including several significant full text magazine and newspaper resources licensed by Knowledge Ontario for the use of Ontarians. These include Gale Cengage databases, Cedrom SNi, and the Canadian Points of View Reference Centre, among others. These databases, licensed by Knowledge Ontario, are accessible through any Ontario library website, and will soon be accessible without a library card from anywhere in Ontario through the use of geolocation.

askON is a collaboration of public and post-secondary libraries each, of which has offered up some of their staff time to make the service possible. Library staff working in different services (public, college, and university) work in shifts to provide 45 hours a week of service to public library visitors, and over 60 hours a week to post-secondary students. The service also hires library and information science students as volunteers.

askON currently works with 14 college libraries, 7 university libraries, and 49 public libraries across Ontario, offering services in English (askON) and French (ONdemande). Their goal is to have all of Ontario's publicly-funded libraries working together to provide service to all Ontarians.