Welcome to Ask a Librarian!

Email a librarian at John Jay

24/7 Online chat with a librarian*

What's the difference?

We want you to be able to get a response to your question whenever you have one.

With e-mail, you will always get a response from a John Jay librarian. We might not respond right away but will usually get back to you within 24 hours and often much sooner. With online chat, you will get a response from a librarian at any time but only from a John Jay librarian between 2-3pm on weekdays.

If you do not need an immediate answer to your reference question, we encourage you to choose the email option over the chat option as we are usually able to spend more time to provide a more thorough response.

To speak with a John Jay librarian by phone, call (212) 237-8246 or -8247 during reference desk service hours.

Types of questions you might Ask a Librarian via e-mail or chat:

Advice about how to begin researching a topic
Suggestions about databases to use
Tips about how to search databases, the library catalog or the web
Assistance with evaluating the usefulness of a resource (book, article, web site, etc.)
Help checking whether the library has a copy of a book, magazine, journal, etc., that you need
Explanation of library services and policies

* John Jay is part of a nationwide cooperative of reference librarians. It is possible that your question may be addressed by a librarian who is not from John Jay. Reference librarians around the U.S. are available 24/7, and in general, a John Jay librarian is available for chat from 2-3 pm each weekday.

Lloyd Sealy Library John Jay College of Criminal Justice 899 10th Avenue NY, NY 10019 Phone: (212) 237-8246 Fax: (212) 237-8221	For reference questions see Ask a librarian All other questions and comments to libinfo@jjay.cuny.edu