report on the asknow instant messaging trial now available
From November 2006 to June 2007, I was lucky enough to project manage a trial IM reference service at my former POW, which ran in conjunction with National and State Libraries Australia’s AskNow virtual reference service. An article on the trial was published in the May 2007 issue of Australian Library Journal, and you can check out a pre-print on the NLA website.
The trial was a great opportunity to really test the viability of the concept of IM reference, and to nut out the logistics of operating IM reference in a geographically dispersed collaborative. We collected quite a significant body of data related to user and staff experiences as well as usage trends. During the trial, we interacted with users in more than 1400 sessions, and we conducted in-depth analysis of over 600 of those transcripts.
The result? We proved that there is absolutely a demand for IM reference and that the ‘presence’ characteristic of IM can lead to increased repeat usage and can facilitate true point-of-need assistance. What we also proved, though, was that it’s not feasible to operate a large scale, high usage virtual reference service without some of the functionality we’re used to seeing in proprietary chat reference tools, such as queuing or routing of users and the ability to have multiple librarians servicing incoming sessions.
So, where to next? Well, as part of the trial, we developed a system architecture for collaborative IM reference. Part of this architecture needs to be built, while open source solutions are available for other components (like a Jabber IM server). NLA developers are currently working on developing the routing module that forms the core component of the architecture.
Stay tuned for an update on the status of the NLA project at VALA 2008.
Have other libraries had similar experiences with IM? I’d love to hear about the challenges and triumphs other libraries have encountered. Leave your thoughts in the comments or drop me an email.
G’day Kate. I look forward to your VALA presentation.
Macquarie and Murdoch University Libraries have implemented an IM based chat reference server using Jabber client. We used a MAMS grant to develop a routing system using Shibboleth, so that students are routed to the correct institutions’ librarians - and enquiries are flicked on to the next librarian if it it not answered quickly enough.
There will be a paper about it at VALA, but if you are interested we can tell you more about it.
@ kathryn: great stuff! I’d love to have a chat to you about this. I think I read on your blog that you’ll be at the SLQ unconference next week… would love to talk to you about the Monash/Murdoch project.
Have you published on the project at all? Very keen to hear what you guys are doing.
Well, there will be info about it published soon. Will email you directly and tell you more. I just work as an operator for the service, but I can tell you what I know.
Would love to catch up during the unconf next week.
Kate, I read your report this week and would love to hear more about the software being developed. If you have a moment, it would be great if you could stop by my blog (Digital Reference) and see if my MeeboMe indicates I’m free to chat. I’d love to get my library involved in any project that finds a way to set up a scalable collaborative reference service. We’ve been long time QuestionPoint subscribers; it would be cool to augment that service with an IM one.
@ stephen: thanks for your comment. I agree, augmenting proprietary chat reference with IM is a great way to extend our services. We certainly found that our trial attracted a large number of users who hadn’t previously used AskNow - evidence that IM as a medium appeals to different user groups. We also found a higher proportion of upper secondary and university students used IM than AskNow - again, evidence of appeal for new audiences.
I’ll certainly drop by your blog and see if you’re online to chat (I’m a long time reader, btw). I’ve also sent you an email with some more detail, which I hope will be of interest.