Time

10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Location

To be held at METRO. Directions

Agenda

1. Presentation by Alexa Pearce (Reference Associate, Bobst Library, NYU) on how NYU's experience running a text message reference service
2. Discussion

Meeting Notes

This was a record turnout for the VR SIG. There were at least 25 people in attendance.

Alexa Pearce gave a presentation on her library's text message reference service (slides are online in Google Docs).

• In operation for 1.5 years
  • NYU has a designated phone number for the service
  • Patrons just add the phone number as a contact to their phones. There is no need for them to also remember any shortcodes, etc., as in the case of other services
• Started off using a smartphone (Blackberry Pearl)
  • Each day, a different person had the phone handed off to them.
  • By having librarians use the phone to send/receive text messages, the librarians got a better feel for the native experience of texting.
• The service is now in the process of switching over to using Library H3lp for its text message reference service
  • Library was already interested in moving its IM reference service from Meebo to Library H3lp.
  • Librarians now log in to web interface to receive and reply to text messages
  • Still requires that the library has a phone with a text messaging plan from a carrier (must be a phone running Google Android OS, but iPhones will be another option in future)
  • Library H3lp software carries a cost of $500-$600 a year
• Lessons learned
  • As they've expanded virtual reference and looked at the kinds of questions coming in and where the students are when they send them in (frequently, they are within the library itself nearby to one or more service points), NYU is coming to view virtual reference services less as a way of bridging physical distances and more as about offering [communication] options to students.
  • Many more research questions in this venue than expected
  • Reference interactions with patrons frrequently involve multiple messages between patron and librarian
  • Average number of messages sent by librarian before session is completed: 3.5
  • Busiest month was April 2009 = 90 reference interactions. So far, October 2009 has seen 75 interactions.

During the question and answer period, which dominated the rest of the morning, we discussed:

• High cost of text message reference software from Altarama (the VR SIG had a demo in early 2005 of the Altarama software)
• Google Voice offers free SMS but you have to worry about the fact that your reference interactions will reside on Google's servers, not your own.

More on Text Message Reference

• See the SMS Reference topics page in this wiki