OLA 2007

Jenn Horwath, eLibrarian, Mohawk College Library

Background:

• Mohawk has largest apprenticeship rogram in Ontario
• 40 staff, 6 librarian, 1 director

History:

• 1999: launched email reference
• 2003: started with VAL (Virtual Academic Librarian) (use LSSI/tutor.com for VR)
• Feb 2005: started using IM

Hours, staffing:

• Staffed 8:30/10am?-9pm, Mon-Fri; 8:30am-5pm Sat & Sun
• Staffed consortially
• Real Life Desk (RLD) gets very little business. Those on RLD also do VR and IM (while on the RLD). Priority is given to Real Life Patrons
• Did not reduce RLD coverage hours

Trillian:

• Use Trillian for IM (including accounts for AIM, MSN, Yahoo!)
• Trillian Con: Must download & install Trillian updates, and re-key account info each time Trillian update is downloaded

Staff feedback:

• Staff were surveyed for their satisfaction with VR and IM
• 100% thought IM was “good”; for VR the numbers were lower: 22% “poor”, 31% “fair/adequate”, 47% “good”
• 19% reported a lack of co-browsing; 6% complained of no response from patrons; 19% spoke of lost connections
• Similar things reported by other libraries in their VR consortium

VR Pros:

• Easier coverage of hours via consortium
• Co-browse and scripted messages possible
• Provides stats automatically

VR Cons:

• LSSI/tutor.com only works in IE (not in Firefox or with the Mac)
• VR requires more training than IM
• New tutor.com requires enduser-side download
• Not free

IM Pros:

• Free
• Less training required
• No lag

Misc:

• ‘Some study’ (sorry, no reference) reported that 90% of VR users are ‘open to instruction’
• Some Mohawk library staff use Yahoo! IM to communicate with one another
• Mohawk’s next step: Monitor stats for trends
• Mentioned using Skype in conjunction with Unyte for free co-browsing

Elena Prigoda, Instruction & Liaison Librarian, Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto Libraries

VR Software:

• Docutek for VR
• Having problems

First steps with IM:

• Originally just using MSN
• Tried using status indicator icons but found them buggy/unreliable.

IM Software now:

• GAIM for IM
• MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, AIM
• GAIM allows logging of transcripts, to be used for evaluation. Transcripts will not likely be saved beyond the intial trial phase.
• Chose GAIM because of logging of transcripts and because it services the 4 aforementioned IM account types.
• For the Mac they use Adium

GAIM Cons:

• Have to download and install each new version of the client; also requires re-keying account login information.

Meebo Cons:

• To view transcripts, must look at each enduser individually.

Promotion:

• Huge “ask.gerstein” banners outside library, bookmarks with chat bubbles.
• Felt it important to use ‘1 message throughout’: “ask.gerstein”
• Modelled page after UNC Library’s Ask-A-Librarian page.
• Student newspaper article on the service.

Practices:

• Set ‘away messages’ (e.g., “back in 5 minutes”, “away at meeting, back in 1 hour”) when unable to provide service.
• One person IM’s for a whole week at a time.

Hours and staffing:

• Same hours as RLD.
• Staffed by librarians, FIS grads and library technicians.

Evaluation, ask 1/3 people:

• Are you a UofT student, staff or faculty member?
• What is your location?
• What do you think of this service?

What happened?

• Went live April 11, 2006.
• Have recieved 250 questions since then, approx 1-16 per week.
• Pilot is over, a success.

End Users:

• 89% are students; 29% are grad students, 33% are undergraduate students, 27% unknown.
• Faculty use VR (Docutek) more than IM.
• 90% use MSN, 5% use gTalk, 5% use Yahoo!.

Memorable quotes:

• “Sometimes students are too busy to trudge all the way down to the library to get questions answered by reliable sources.
• Rita Vine suggests: “Make everything a pilot.”

Questions to ask:

• Which hours and days received the most questions?
• How many ‘buddies’ do they have from MSN, etc.?
• Do they receive more questions on the RLD or via IM?
• Do they get any IM spam?