Provide volunteers to answer questions and make suggestions.

A spokeswoman, Lynn Shulman, said that while the volunteers answered only about 20,000 calls last year, they filled in important service.

The rules permit teachers and volunteers to answer children's questions about condoms, though not to introduce the topic.

The volunteers can't answer because they are all eating burritos.

But volunteers cannot catalogue or search for materials on computer data bases or answer questions at the research desk.

The volunteers answer phones, referring a caller to the clinicians if a problem seems to require professional intervention.

Generally, volunteers answer letters, mail packages and complete administrative work.

For the next few days, volunteers answered calls in Falls Church from victims' families who wanted to know how they, too, could collect their $200,000 checks.

Several languages of Wikipedia also maintain a reference desk, where volunteers answer questions from the general public.

With the clerical staff not yet in place, volunteers answered the busy phones at the White House press office throughout the afternoon.