LibraryH3lp + Drupal

UWO’s library website moved over to Drupal in September 2008. Since then I’ve been working off-and-on at getting a LibraryH3lp chat box on my subject (aka Browse by Program) pages. Other librarians have expressed an interest in doing the same for their subject pages.

Here in the Allyn & Betty Taylor Library we provide chat reference service via LibraryH3lp + Pidgin, and have placed a LibraryH3lp chat box on Taylor’s Research Help page. In my realm of experience, having an open chat box (as we have on Taylor’s Research Help page) does wonders to increase chat reference stats. One drawback to the ‘embedded’ chat box approach is that patrons — should patron chose to navigate away from the ‘host’ page — patrons must click the “Pop-Out” button on the LibraryH3lp chat box in order to avoid losing the conversation. (At my last job there was a similar issue with MeeboMe. I’m sure there are work-arounds, but those are for MeeboMe enthusiasts’ consideration.)

Some of our librarians would like to include links to pop-out LibraryH3lp chat boxes on their subject (aka Browse by Program) pages as well. Real estate on these pages is limited, so here we’ve opted to run with ’status indicator’ buttons instead of open chat boxes. Having a button or link in place is (IMHO) an okay compromise, because a pop-out chat box remains available to the patron even if he or she choses to leave the page that spawned said chat box.

Anyroad, if you look at any one of my many subject pages you’ll see a “Chat Available” or a “Chat Unavailable” button. If I’m available, click the button and Bob’s yer uncle.