Chat Reference at Morrisville State College Library

This originally appeared as a chapter in:
Ronan, Jana, ed. Chat reference : a guide to live virtual reference services . Westport, Conn. : Libraries Unlimited, 2003.

I have retained copyright.

I am making this available now because of the recent interest in using Instant Messaging in virtual reference. We have been doing so at Morrisville State College Library for many years.

Chapter 11
Give Them What They Already Use - AOL Instant Messenger":
A Case Study

Wilfred (Bill) Drew

Associate Librarian, Systems and Reference

SUNY Morrisville College Library

drewwe@morrisville.edu

Imagine the following scenario. You are working from home on your term paper due Friday morning. It is Thursday night at 8 PM. You are working on your bibliography and only have part of a citation for a magazine article. You panic. What do you do now? You go to the library website but in your panic youforget how to use the databases. You need help and click on "Talk to a Librarian LIVE" and up pops AOL Instant Messenger. Now here is something you know how to use. You type in your message asking for help and the librarian on duty makes some suggestions. You find what you need and finish the paper in time to get some sleep. This is how many students get help from home or their dorm room at SUNY Morrisville College.

The College

Morrisville College of Agriculture and Technology is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and is located five miles from the geographic center of New York State. Founded in 1908, the college is a residential college of agriculture and technology offering two- and four-year degrees in more than 70 academic programs and options. The college community is made up of approximately 2,900 full time students with more than 102 full-time faculty. The college has an extension campus in Norwich, NY. The college has been named Yahoo! Internet Life's "Most Wired Two Year College" for both 2000 and 2001. The mission of the college is to " provide access to quality Post-secondary education to all who can benefit." The vision of the college, as stated by our president, Dr. Ray Cross, is to aspire "to be an academically challenging, business-oriented, technology-focused entrepreneurial learning community.

The Computing Environment

The college is an IBM Laptop University institution. Approximately 2/3 of all students participate in the laptop program. All students in a laptop program get an IBM laptop and Raytheon wireless card. Currently over 27 curriculums require students to have a laptop. Laptops can be covered by financial aid.

The college computing infrastructure consists of a fiber optic gigabit Ethernet to all college buildings. All desktop computers have a link to the backbone via 10 base T cabling with a bandwidth of up to 100 megabits. Currently the college links to the Internet via 8 T-1 lines. All classrooms are wired with at least one port. All Faculty and Staffoffices are wired. A student or faculty member with a laptop using his or her wireless card can walk from one end of campus to the other and stay connected the entire time. Wireless connectivity is available in all academic buildings, including the library and dorms plus all dining areas.

The Library

The library has an extensive collection of more than 90,000 books; 12,000 microfilms; 400 serial titles; 12,000 full text e-journals; 1,500 audio and videocassettes. It is open 82 hours per week during the semester and 40 hours a week during the summer. As of March 2002, the library is migrating from DRA MultiLis integrated library management system to Ex Libris ALEPH 500. It will be fully operational by the end of May 2002. Other resources include manyonline databases and full text resources. All are accessible off campus to anyone in the college community. Wireless and network connections are available throughout the library. The professional staff consists of 5 full time and two part time librarians. All are experienced computer and internet users.

Talk to a Librarian LIVE

Started in its present form in August of 1998, the purpose of "Talk to a Librarian LIVE" is to provide live synchronous reference service via the Internet. The service is aimed at several different clienteles that all need help from the library. For Norwich campus students and faculty, it allows them to reach a reference librarian when one isn't available at Norwich. For Distance Learning Students, it allows the remote studentto get help without visiting the library and without making a long distance phone call. For the Morrisville campus, the service allows the student and faculty member to get assistance without going to the library. For users with just a dial up connection,it allows them to contact the library while not being able to use the phone to call the reference desk.

Requirements for the service are minimal. All that is required for the user is having AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) on his/her computer and a connection to the Internet. America Online provides its instant messaging (IM) software at no charge and does not require the user to be an AOL subscriber. Instant messaging allows two or more people to exchange messages in real time almost instantaneously. AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) can also be used to access chat rooms. AIM works through servers maintained by America Online. No local server is required.

Why AIM?  

To decide what IM program to use, I conducted a survey of 35 laptop students in journalism. The survey showed 95% of the students used AIM already. I also did more subjective surveys of students and staff and most were familiar with AIM. It is also easy to download and install. It is available at no cost to the library or the patron. Any staff member can cover the service by logging in under the "morrisvillelib" screen name. It is also easy to implement by inserting a link into each webpage.

AIM Details

AIM offers many useful features for the user and for the Librarian on duty. Users can login without giving the library any personal identifying information. AOL IM requires a screen nameregistered with America Online but not with the library. The Librarian can insert links to web pages very easily. This allows the user to go directly to the appropriate page without having to go through intermediate pages or menus. The librarian or the patron can print transcripts of the session for later reference. Occasionally necessary is a feature allowing the Librarian to block abusive users.

As with any service, there are some disadvantages. AIM does not keep any kind of statistics so aneffort must be made to keep a count. AIM has many features not used by the library staff that can make it difficult for the occasional user such as our part time librarians. Another potential problem is that anyone using AIM can contact the service even if they are not part of the Morrisville College community. AIM also does not allow you to push the user's browser to particular pages.

Staffing

"Talk to a Librarian LIVE" is available any time the library is open. The librarian at the reference deskmonitors it. It is treated no different in priority than a phone call or face-to-face reference interview. All five full time librarians and the two part time librarians cover the service when they are on the reference desk. Staffing can be a problem when people are sick or away at meetings. This is handled either by using the Away message feature or by having someone monitor "Talk to a Librarian LIVE" from their desk.

Observations

The volume of questions seems to vary quite a bit. The library will receive any where from 1 to 20 on a typical day. I have had as many as 15 in one hour. The other librarians report about 5 per hour as maximum.

Questions asked are very similar to questions we get at the reference desk or over the telephone. One librarian reported that most questions are "Which database do I use for...?" and "Where would I find...?" while another felt she got mostly questions that the patron could have answered by looking over our web page more carefully. One of our part time librariansreports that the most common questions for her are "When does the library close?" and about finding books.  

The librarians have accepted the use of AIM quite well. Two have started using it to chat with their children away at college. Another dislikes "the cryptic code, lower case letters, that people write in!" One librarian complained about conversing with anonymous patrons and told me this tale of woe:

One night I had a patron asking about books on the Taliban - then he (or she) asked if I thought Bin Laden was dead.No, I replied, he's probably hiding in Pakistan.The patron then opined that Bin Laden was actuallyin Seneca Dining Hall.

One problem we have yet to solve is the one of missed messages. This happens when the librarian at thereference desk leaves to help another patron. The librarian will often come back and find one or more messages waiting. When he/she tries to respond, the patron is no longer online. We are investigating possible solutions to this problem. One obvioussolution is to have this service covered by someone not at the reference desk. The problem with that is that we are very busy and cannot guarantee someone else would be at his/her computer when needed. Another alternative is to use the "Away" message function within AIM. This may be the most desirable method.

Marketing "Talk to a Librarian LIVE"

Marketing of the service was done via e-mail and handouts. The following message went out to the entire college community:

SUNY Morrisville Library now has two new services for use of the students, faculty, and staff when they are not in the library. These services allow the library patron to have access to the reference desk and to all of the library databases and full text resources without having to be in the library.

"Talk to a Librarian LIVE" lets the remote library user reach a live reference librarian in real-time without having to disconnect from the internet. This service is available any time the library is open.

Off campus library users can now use any of the resources available via the library web pages from home or any other location where they can get access to the Internet. This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All the user needs is a username and password provided by the computer center to every student, staff, or faculty member of the SUNY Morrisville community.

Marketing also involves placement of the product. "Talk to a Librarian LIVE" is placed on most of the library web pages. There is a live link at the top and bottom of each page.

The Future?

It is very likely that SUNY Morrisville will stay with AIM for our "Talk to a Librarian LIVE" service. As one patron stated after a chat session, "Librarians Rule!" and because the students like this service we willcontinue it. With AIM clients now available for PDAs and other hand held devices, the future looks bright for our use of AIM. There has been some interest expressed across SUNY libraries in a SUNY wide virtual reference service. The discussion of such a service is just beginning and the future of it is unknown. What is known is that we will continue our "Talk to a Librarian LIVE" service because, as stated by one of our librarians, "The best times are when a patron says 'thanks' for the help they've received."

Tags:

• IM