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Thanks to everyone who replied to my query about chat reference service in small libraries! I've summarized the responses below in case anyone else is interested. -Amy ------------------------------------- From an art librarian in a university branch library: We've had chat here for a few years. The number of chat requests we get is pretty low. I just keep my chat open while I'm working, just in case. If I don't want to be interrupted, I just switch it to "unavailable". My library assistant and our two grad assistants also grab chat requests. ----- From an assistant branch manager in a multi-branch public library: I am a Assistant Branch Manager / Senior Reference Librarian at a nine branch public library at a pretty huge county in _______. We started IM Chat in 2009 (or so) and have had a medium-decent response in my opinion. We didn't get a lot of backing from the technology department, they are very leery of any technological implementation, so it isn't highly publicized. We use Meebo, and it seems to work pretty well (especially considering it is free). We keep statistics in a basic Excel workbook. Each branch has an assigned rotation and reports their stats for the month. The main branch has an over all back-up role in addition to their assigned shift. It was a slow start but taking a quick look at the data for this past year, we seem to average about 150-200 questions a month. Most activity takes place early in the week, between 10 am and 5:30 pm. There is evening activity but it seems pretty scattered. If people leave questions on the service off hours, we try to contact them the next business day. As usual with this sort of thing, you can have periods of no activity and then everyone needs help at once. We (most of the reference staff) hope to be able to keep offering the service even though admin seems pretty luke warm about it and there are those who just don't see the value. As for responses, almost everyone who chats with us reports being really pleased with the response they recieve and loving the service. ----- From an architecture librarian in a university branch library: I, too, am the only librarian at our Architecture Library. However, our IM service is done via Meebo (we only have one account) and all the librarians and reference desk staff (Main and branches) have an assigned IM shift. At earlier and later times in the day, whoever is physically at our main library reference desk also does IM; during the middle part of the day, between 10am-3:00pm when the reference desk is busier, the IM shifts are done by librarians from their offices. Sometimes if another librarian gets a question related to architecture that they cannot answer, he/she will either refer the patron to me, or give me a call and ask me to login to Meebo and answer the IM question on the spot, if I'm available. I've promoted the IM service to the architecture students during class sessions and also when they come into the library for help, and they like it. Especially those architecture students who are in another building 3 blocks away from the branch library. What program is your main library using? Meebo is free, and you can put the widget anywhere, such as on your branch library website. And, even if you're "away" or "unavailable", you can customize your status message to let patrons know they can leave their e-mail address with their question so you can respond to them later. We've been doing IM service for two years, and it's been going well. We don't get a ton of questions that way, but it's a great alternative for those patrons who prefer this type of service. ----- From an art librarian in a university branch library: This isn't a direct answer to your question because my arrangement is different, but my response may be useful. I participate in the library system's QuestionPoint service and am the only branch librarian who does. I set up the service when I was the head of reference and the one hour per week that I "chatted" transferred with me to my new job three years ago. I enjoy chat and it's good to keep up some skills in general reference, but the lack of access to the general reference collection has become challenging. I sense that I am receiving more questions for which a proper answer would require a quick trip to the general reference stacks. I expect that you will receive some questions that would be better served by ready access to a larger (and general) reference collection. You will need to be prepared for these types of questions and know how you want to handle them. ----- From a librarian at a college of design library: We have an instant messaging service here at ________ library (FTE 1400 students) and it is pretty underwhelming. We haven't really done any promotion though. Our IM widget is on our library home page, facebook & on our libguides. Mainly we get questions about operating hours, renewals, requesting specific books and accessing online resources. Occasionally we get questions about whether we have resources on a given subject, but they are infrequent. We have a general rule-of-thumb that the IM service will be 'open' during library open hours. But I don't think we have a stated policy or IM service statement on our website. The only problem that we have is that our circ staff responds to IMs and sometimes they are too busy at the desk to immediately respond. If there is not a quick response, a person might get discouraged and leave the chat session. All in all, I think it's a great idea and don't see any problem with a small branch having occasional IM hours. It is a useful immediate service. The feedback we've gotten from the small amount of people who have used it has been positive. ----- From an architecture librarian in a university branch library: I have attempted to do this but I have pretty much abandoned it because it was hard to be consistent with it. My idea was to have it on whenever I was at my desk but then I would forget to change my status when I would leave my office and, invariably, that's when they would ask questions... and not get an answer. I didn't get a lot of traffic because I didn't advertise it that much and I keep wondering if I should attempt to give it another try. The issue is that between meetings, checking things on the stacks and various other reasons to get off my desk, it is hard to make it consistent even if I actually remember to correctly mark when I'm available and when I'm not. _________[main university library] has a chat service that gets decent traffic. A few months ago, there was some talk of trying to integrate some sort of triage so that if the question required more in depth attention they would immediately transfer the chat to subject specialists when available but I don't know what happened with that. I thought that sounded like a good idea. ----- From an art librarian in a university branch library: All last year we offered chat reference in the ______ [branch] Library and we even offered Image Reference...2 hours once a week in the late morning, and two hours once a week in the late afternoon. We offered this every week for a year and no one ever used it. It was disappointing. I announced it on the faculty student email lists and at faculty meetings. I posted it on the _______ [branch] Library website and mentioned it in every Library Instruction class. --------------------------Original message---------------------- From: ARLIS/NA List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]<mailto:[mailto:[log in to unmask]]> On Behalf Of Trendler, Amy E. Sent: Friday, December 09, 2011 9:38 AM To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Subject: [ARLIS-L] Chat/IM reference service in small libraries? I'm considering offering reference chat /IM service for the Architecture Library, a branch library in which I am the only professional librarian, and I'm wondering if others have experiences doing so in similar situations. The main library here operates chat reference through the reference desk and I've seen how it works at that scale, but I'm specifically interested in chat experiences in smaller operations. Has it been worthwhile? Are you overwhelmed, or underwhelmed, with queries? Are there any difficulties with service hours since you aren't available all day to chat? Other challenges or rewards? If you email me directly I will summarize the replies and post to the list in case others are interested. Thanks, Amy -------------------------------------------------------------------- Amy Trendler University Libraries...A destination for research, learning, and friends Architecture Librarian Ball State University 765-285-5858 Muncie, IN 47306 [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> The University Libraries provide services that support student pursuits for academic success and faculty endeavors for knowledge creation and classroom instruction. http://www.bsu.edu/library ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mail submissions to [log in to unmask] For information about joining ARLIS/NA see: http://www.arlisna.org/join.html Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc) to [log in to unmask] ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance: http://lsv.arlisna.org Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~