Several libraries around the country have been embedding MeeboMe chat windows into their OPACs. Our most recent inspiration was from
David Lee King at the Topeka-Shawnee County Public Library in Kansas. What he did was place a MeeboMe widget in his OPAC on the screen that you get when your search retrieves no results. Following his lead, the Commission has done the same thing.
If you search our
catalog and get no results, you’ll be able to ask for help right there and then. We’re still tweaking it so look for a resized window and some different wording in the near future. We’re also considering embedding the widget on ever page in the catalog as yet another way our users can get live help. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as things develop.
Does the user have any options when the library is closed? Can they use Meebo to send an e-mail message or some kind of message that you see when you sign back on?
This sounds like a great idea and I’m looking forward to seeing how much your service is used.
Daniel,
Thanks for your comment! We’re excited about our new help function, too!
Yes, if we are completely logged off from IM, Meebo shows a message telling them “AskNELibCom is offline, leave a message”. It also says “Type here and hit enter to send an offline message” in their typing box. When we log onto IM again, their message automatically pops right up for us to see what was asked when we were closed.
However, we have discovered that some people haven’t realized that they need to leave their contact info so that we can answer them when we are back online. Some mornings we come in and new questions pop up, but we have no way of replying to the asker.
In addition, we have added text above the Meebo widget that says “If we’re not online, use the e-mail form”, which links them to our web form where they are asked for their e-mail address.