7/24/2013
AIM
We were seeking a free embedable chat widget,
which does not require a log on and will alert staff to the existence of a chat
message to replace the now defunct Meebo service. A survey of the Libraries of
the top 100 universities and Irish Academic libraries was undertaken to
establish if chat was available to patrons to establish what alternatives are
available.
Method
The Top 100 Universities as listed by the Times Online at
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/ were selected to be visited, along with the
Universities and Institutes of Technology in the Republic of Ireland. The library web site for each site was
visited and any offering of Online chat / Virtual Reference was listed,
including the service provider, and whether alternatives such as social media
were offered. Non-english language sites were explored but it was difficult to
establish if chat was available in the non-latin alphabet sites. Where evident
alternatives were noted (links to social networks etc.) Each visit was cursory,
as a measure of how obvious the chat service was, therefore it is possible that
libraries identified as not offering this service do so, but were omitted as a
result of this methodology.
General Results
Ireland
Of the 20 sites visited, 4 had chat / virtual reference
offerings. 3 of these were identifiable as being provided by libraryh3lp. (UCD,
NUIM and WIT). 1 was not identifiable (NUIG).
80% of Irish Academic Libraries
do not offer online chat / virtual reference.
Top 100 Universities
Graph 1: Break down of chat
provision by country.
US
|
38
|
UK
|
2
|
Australia
|
3
|
Belgium
|
0
|
Brazil
|
0
|
Canada
|
3
|
China
|
2
|
France
|
1
|
Germany
|
1
|
Hong
Kong
|
2
|
Israel
|
0
|
Japan
|
1
|
Korea
|
1
|
Netherlands
|
3
|
Russia
|
0
|
Singapore
|
1
|
Sweden
|
1
|
Switzerland
|
0
|
Taiwan
|
0
|
Turkey
|
1
|
63% of the 100
library sites visited offered chat / virtual reference. There was often more than 1 option offered.
For example Chat, IM, SMS and an online form.
43% of the libraries were located in the US. Of these, 38
(88%) offered chat/virtual reference.
Excluding US based
libraries 25 (44%) of the remaining libraries offer online chat/reference. However
the trend is significantly different outside of North America.
23% offered links to
social networks. These included Facebook, twitter, Google talk, MSN, Yahoo
Messenger, LinkedIN and AOL.
IM was specifically
offered by 8% of sites, but all of the services involved required account
log ins for all participants.
Graph 2: Break down of
percent of Universities offering chat by country
Europe has a much lower
provision of online chat than North America.
Map 1: Geographical Spread.
Table 3: Top 10 Universities
– Library chat/ virtual reference provision
University
|
Chat / Virtual Reference
Provision.
|
Harvard
|
NONE
|
MIT
|
LibGuides
|
University of Cambridge
|
NONE
|
Oxford University
|
Libraryh3lp
|
Berkeley
|
Question Point
|
Stanford
|
Libraryh3lp
|
Princeton
|
Libraryh3lp
|
UCLA
|
Question Point
|
Tokyo
|
NONE (note: only English language site visited)
|
Yale
|
NONE
|
40% do not provide chat, 30% use libraryh3lp, 20% Question
Point and 10% Libguides.
Table 4: Top 100 Universities
– Library chat services used
Service Used
|
Number of Sites Using
|
Libguides
|
2
|
Library Help
|
21
|
Question Point
|
21
|
Springshare
|
4 (Also Libguides)
|
Calis
|
1
|
Dotori on
|
1
|
Chatbot
|
2
|
Ask a librarian .org
|
1 (Florida State Initiative)
|
Facebook
|
1
|
Libanswers
|
1
|
Liveperson.net
|
1
|
Mycustomercloud.com
|
1
|
Secondary Observations
Alternatives to chat offered included online forms (Ask a
librarian/ feedback etc (13)), e-mail links
(9)
Many chat services were limited in the time during which
they were offered, additionally many were unavailable during the Summer.
It was difficult to establish who the service provider was –
as the source code for the page had to be examined in most instances. This left
some services unspecified.
23% of the libraries offered social media interactions. Of
note is the UK, 2 sites offered chat, while 4 of the 7 that did not offered
Social media connections.
Text / SMS services were offered by 5 % of the Top
University Libraries.
Conclusion
- Libraries are not utilizing free chat services or widgets,
their chat services are constituent parts of larger support services such as Springshare, Questionpoint.
- Library ITT Dublin, have very little uptake on the chat
offered via Meebo previously.
- Trials of digsby, Trillian, etc., all proved unsatisfactory,
failing to log on to social media sites, widgets failing to register on live
web pages. Chatwing was the best of these, but did not offer an alert.
- Chat is only one part of virtual reference, other means of service provision can be explored.
- Social media can be utilized in the meanwhile. A trial of
the embedded Facebook comment widget is currently in development.
