Using Summon? Integrate your LibraryH3lp chat service!

<p>Big news! You can now integrate your LibraryH3lp chat service within Summon®.<br /><br />The new LibraryH3lp integration is part of a <a href="http://www.serialssolutions.com/en/press_room/detail/serials-solutions-delivers-new-contextual-research-assistance-in-the-summon" target="_blank">larger suite of new features to provide contextual research assistance in the Summon Discovery Service</a>. Within <a href="http://www.serialssolutions.com/en/services/summon/features-summon-suggestions/" target="_blank">Summon Suggestions</a>, "embedded chat and reference widgets allow users to receive real-time help from reference staff without leaving the Summon user interface. Libraries can seamlessly integrate and customize chat and reference widgets in the Summon environment with easy to use administration tools."<br /><br />To learn more, check out the <a href="http://support.serialssolutions.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4698" target="_blank">Summon documentation</a>. And if you run into any snags, the fine folks at <a href="mailto:clients@serialssolutions.com" target="_blank">Serials Solutions® customer support</a> are available to help.<br /><br />Do you use other products you'd like to see integrated with LibraryH3lp? Send us an <a href="mailto:support@libraryh3lp.com" target="_blank">e-mail</a> or leave a comment below and we'll see what we can do!</p>

Big news! You can now integrate your LibraryH3lp chat service within Summon®. The new LibraryH3lp integration is part of a larger suite of n...

Library chat surveys, University of Minnesota Duluth style

<p><br />Interested in using surveys to improve your library's virtual reference services? In this<br />post, we've partnered with the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) Library to talk<br />library surveys. (Thanks guys!) They've been using surveys alongside chat this year and have interesting and actionable results to share with you.<br /><br />At the end of this post, we'll cover the mechanics of adding a survey to your widget. But first up, Doreen Hansen, Computer Systems Specialist, along with UMD Librarians Kim Pittman and Gabriel Gardner will take you behind the scenes to share how they apply survey results within their library to improve library services.<br /><br /><div><div><h3><span style="font-size: large;">A Tale of Two Surveys: How and Why</span></h3></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div>UMD Reference Librarians first offered chat service to patrons in 2004. After joining<br />forces with LibraryH3lp in 2008, we saw a significant increase in usage. However, after<br />that initial spike, our usage numbers began to stagnate (see charts). In order to uncover<br />the cause of our underwhelming usage statistics, we surveyed our patrons in the spring<br />and summer of 2012. We hoped that our survey results would give us insight into<br />users’ experience of chat and help us identify areas for improvement.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-r7IGvBByPRxFO7rR_MtQ0W8ML3qL_Dp7Yt2QPFBJzhvpLAdovZ3PxI2DzGuuusIadu4D8snqHqXiA1efWEEk4P-pAq8QKxU8B4r_stjRXYf41pFQmtp2cWjgYjrB9mQ95wmck42gu4w/s1600/chats-per-year.png" imageanchor="1" style="float: right; margin: 0;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-r7IGvBByPRxFO7rR_MtQ0W8ML3qL_Dp7Yt2QPFBJzhvpLAdovZ3PxI2DzGuuusIadu4D8snqHqXiA1efWEEk4P-pAq8QKxU8B4r_stjRXYf41pFQmtp2cWjgYjrB9mQ95wmck42gu4w/s320/chats-per-year.png" width="320" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrYgL87lbMqCIWSRggB8oUUnyOS2LI9sxuq2ad3yDWrAZGyC6EeBS1lJ0L61igzBntYHmP9b1ripqC6j074JD1u1ZraALLYPov4sIJzpb3ZduewH3xZZ6AdXO0cn4zkOTSns48F3Wbawe/s1600/chats-as-percentage-of-FTE.png" imageanchor="1" style="float: left; margin: 0;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrYgL87lbMqCIWSRggB8oUUnyOS2LI9sxuq2ad3yDWrAZGyC6EeBS1lJ0L61igzBntYHmP9b1ripqC6j074JD1u1ZraALLYPov4sIJzpb3ZduewH3xZZ6AdXO0cn4zkOTSns48F3Wbawe/s320/chats-as-percentage-of-FTE.png" width="320" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1"><br /></span><span class="s1">In order to learn more about current chat users and non-users, we created two surveys, both launched in the spring of 2012.</span><span class="s2"><br /><br /></span><span class="s1">One was linked right inside the top header of the patron's chat box via the <title> field within the widget designer. In addition to this eye-catching survey link, librarians also sent patrons a friendly invitation to take a short survey at the conclusion of each chat. </span><br /><span class="s1"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnfZDIl7MpoYdTxHGEqf-DS6JtDLf1O1BHzEq4_omAAYleqzydcaYAG3WBC_dwjL0moEoW-SMBpT-3uKDQ3u0M9UDXhoobJZEAiGYbVGlVve1IW1UNm0nbtZNJDFje1MdosvL3FohRfQ1/s1600/invitation-to-take-survey.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnfZDIl7MpoYdTxHGEqf-DS6JtDLf1O1BHzEq4_omAAYleqzydcaYAG3WBC_dwjL0moEoW-SMBpT-3uKDQ3u0M9UDXhoobJZEAiGYbVGlVve1IW1UNm0nbtZNJDFje1MdosvL3FohRfQ1/s640/invitation-to-take-survey.png" width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1"><br /></span><span class="s1">This survey asked the user to rate their satisfaction with several aspects of their chat experience, offer suggestions for service improvements, and rate their willingness to use the service again. </span><span class="s2"><br /></span></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq5GsPK0CGEpvPb77_65th7U8nkaaS8ycihkkQSjolyZdjkzBto-_9fW1EedeCXm6ZO-OJL1VuBxJDMrZ4r4AKQIivwkmtlmJVJoiOtzSok25zo3rwLl6l4KAwk4e4R8hyphenhyphenM2WwXuy_d7zY/s1600/sample-survey-form.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq5GsPK0CGEpvPb77_65th7U8nkaaS8ycihkkQSjolyZdjkzBto-_9fW1EedeCXm6ZO-OJL1VuBxJDMrZ4r4AKQIivwkmtlmJVJoiOtzSok25zo3rwLl6l4KAwk4e4R8hyphenhyphenM2WwXuy_d7zY/s640/sample-survey-form.png" width="409" /></a></div><span class="s1"><br /></span></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1"> </span></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Our second, more comprehensive survey was targeted to anyone, whether they were previous chat users, were unaware of the chat service, or had known about it but hadn't tried it. This survey posed questions to patrons about their awareness of the service, previous use and satisfaction (if applicable), reasons for non-use (if applicable) and demographic characteristics. We promoted this survey in three places: on our library home page, on our "AskUs!" page, and on the digital sign at the library’s entrance.</span><br /><span class="s1"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBhR48ipN4E-w956JFOZ-PPwy7xgBsKedB4hVrXkWbUeKWyFEnqTczySP8LZoG3wgvDMK159RpK2ag0uhgo2o6bOXiqqTPcnsX-yO1LEp-M2260SMJkB0EEZJsWcjPHVwKWWPAYSrhyphenhyphen5jh/s1600/screenshot-homepage.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBhR48ipN4E-w956JFOZ-PPwy7xgBsKedB4hVrXkWbUeKWyFEnqTczySP8LZoG3wgvDMK159RpK2ag0uhgo2o6bOXiqqTPcnsX-yO1LEp-M2260SMJkB0EEZJsWcjPHVwKWWPAYSrhyphenhyphen5jh/s320/screenshot-homepage.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UMD Library home page with link to survey in lower left corner.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="p1"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 0; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZPW0du2PnKL5mx8UqVPSpqbQRCwYuM-1g3FhPzKfrEXzBId-CDEPn-kJh7nVqA7tHfd87C6zkNEvVq2qxtfa0_hOSehA-Snh-_jqXdE4a9rdBNeR4sj9whQDeWavL_Nwd468YYTdfS85t/s1600/screenshot-homepage-survey-link.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin: 0px auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZPW0du2PnKL5mx8UqVPSpqbQRCwYuM-1g3FhPzKfrEXzBId-CDEPn-kJh7nVqA7tHfd87C6zkNEvVq2qxtfa0_hOSehA-Snh-_jqXdE4a9rdBNeR4sj9whQDeWavL_Nwd468YYTdfS85t/s320/screenshot-homepage-survey-link.png" width="275" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Closeup of survey link</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="clear: both;"></div><br />We chose to use Google Drive to create these surveys because of its simplicity, shareability, and the snazzy charts that we could easily produce from our results. Using Google Drive also allowed us to create a “branching” survey which led users to different questions based on their responses. To our knowledge, Google Drive is currently the only free survey software with this capability.<br /><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1"> </span></div><div class="p1"><h4><span class="s1"><b>How We Used Our Results</b></span></h4><div><span class="s1"><b><br /></b></span></div></div><div class="p1"><span class="s2"></span><span class="s1"><i>Dropped Chats: Embedded vs. Pop-out Widgets</i></span><br /><span class="s1"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">After launching the survey, one problem became clear immediately: our embedded widgets were causing us to lose some users mid-conversation. Patrons would click a link sent by librarians or perhaps leave or refresh the page, losing their connection. While we had suspected that this might be the case, our survey results confirmed this. Switching all our widgets from embedded to pop-out was an easy fix, resulting in a notable decline in the number of lost connections and survey complaints.</span><span class="s2"><br /><br /></span><span class="s1"><i>Response Time</i></span><br /><span class="s2"><i><br /></i></span><span class="s1">After compiling survey results, we noted other common issues experienced by users. Several users commented that librarians were slow to respond to their questions - an issue confirmed by our LibraryH3lp statistics. In order to improve this aspect of our service, we plan to discuss user expectations at future librarian training meetings, and explore options for providing back-up chat coverage should the librarian staffing the desk become too busy to answer promptly.</span><span class="s2"><br /><br /></span><span class="s1"><i>Lack of User Awareness</i></span><br /><span class="s2"><i><br /></i></span><span class="s1">Given our declining chat usage, we were</span> unsurprised to find that the majority of those surveyed had not previously used our chat service. Of those non-users, approximately half were not aware that the service existed. To address this lack of awareness, we are in the process of putting more widgets where our users are: our databases, online research guides, 404 pages, and our course management system, Moodle. In the future, we hope to add widgets to our mobile site (using LibraryH3lp’s mobile widget) and our link resolver pages. </div><div class="p1"><span class="s1"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUEmqmjeyhm669gMKGukL1HWQuywY58c0KP3QZ8QVm_juqQEdUqvWJVS3U9cStrDWQPt7I3j8ZWsKwyhyphenhyphenVtcHxSr4jStqVE_IX15LEGKJIGAuKzU-eTUyRojLePMgVzLxjjcfQEJK0MoOH/s1600/pie-chart-have-u-ever-used.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUEmqmjeyhm669gMKGukL1HWQuywY58c0KP3QZ8QVm_juqQEdUqvWJVS3U9cStrDWQPt7I3j8ZWsKwyhyphenhyphenVtcHxSr4jStqVE_IX15LEGKJIGAuKzU-eTUyRojLePMgVzLxjjcfQEJK0MoOH/s640/pie-chart-have-u-ever-used.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Bhyphenhyphen-7JEEzg9JkIWwuuK3SPN5Qy_XINABu9B4f9aQQd8txt22qi9aX2t1CN-ih7sIOoh0VfETmB2hgzrBBrlTycR5M_KTqhjfrS2fymFvN6bJpCpN307w7ig6SLfYyhYrNzBelC6AldAd/s1600/pie-chart-prior-2-survey.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Bhyphenhyphen-7JEEzg9JkIWwuuK3SPN5Qy_XINABu9B4f9aQQd8txt22qi9aX2t1CN-ih7sIOoh0VfETmB2hgzrBBrlTycR5M_KTqhjfrS2fymFvN6bJpCpN307w7ig6SLfYyhYrNzBelC6AldAd/s640/pie-chart-prior-2-survey.png" width="640" /></a></div><span class="s1"><br /></span></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1"> </span></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">In addition to adding more widgets, we are strategizing new promotional efforts across campus to increase awareness of our chat service. This may include posting fliers in the dorms, advertising in our campus student newspaper, and redoubling our efforts to promote our chat service in library instruction sessions.</span><span class="s2"><br /></span></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 0; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAsbudUk5pKTQbQ_x4V4481WpHXcak1xfrUdkTzibUl3m9lF4aKIbCUgwtdX-vrTKBVAnd1e4cixY_zI-g1p8qrmqsgR94DFi8C_C-karLrJ4RNVOaCQsNQSpjspMtIKzmMIsNJL5_UISV/s1600/meme-1-baby.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAsbudUk5pKTQbQ_x4V4481WpHXcak1xfrUdkTzibUl3m9lF4aKIbCUgwtdX-vrTKBVAnd1e4cixY_zI-g1p8qrmqsgR94DFi8C_C-karLrJ4RNVOaCQsNQSpjspMtIKzmMIsNJL5_UISV/s1600/meme-1-baby.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">example of a meme used in our promotional flyer</td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 0; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD6Kx-LLiYdzYQxV71gXT-z_QFeDcZauuB1bDM-2sMFdLoDJFFAiNxQth5TD2O8XwoQoWmtSyMldI_aG2DA1_i-H7Q6fYuBPbc8qMEqray7WZwf09ZIDqF8eGFvfuCDnoAXIfeDoI5o7hF/s1600/meme-2-texting-in-car.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD6Kx-LLiYdzYQxV71gXT-z_QFeDcZauuB1bDM-2sMFdLoDJFFAiNxQth5TD2O8XwoQoWmtSyMldI_aG2DA1_i-H7Q6fYuBPbc8qMEqray7WZwf09ZIDqF8eGFvfuCDnoAXIfeDoI5o7hF/s320/meme-2-texting-in-car.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">another example of a promotional meme</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="clear: both;"><div><br /></div></div><div><h3><span style="font-size: large;">Adding a survey link to your widget</span></h3></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div>Now that Doreen, Kim, and Gabriel have got you all excited about using surveys to improve your library's services, let's talk about how you can add a link to your survey in your widget's title.<br /><br />The simplest way to do this is to include a hyperlink as part of your <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/basic-widget-customization">widget's title</a>. For example:</div><div><br /></div><code>Ask a Librarian <span style="float:right; text-align: center; font-size: 12px;">How did we do?<br/><a href="http://link-to-survey">Let us know!</a></span></code><br /><code><br /></code>or<br /><code></code><br /><code>Ask Us! <span style="padding:4px;background:#ff0;color:#032b3c"> Take our <a target="_blank" style="color:#032b3c" href="http://z.umn.edu/chatsurvey">brief chat survey</a></span></code><br /><div><br />And if your title needs more room, you can add a wicked CSS hack. For example:</div><div><br /></div><div><code>#layout {<br />  top: 40px;<br />}</code></div><div><br /></div><div>The result should look something like this:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk2LN89qYKWMhVf78Td_5PLfwBQSiin5WxorPQf3BjYIgeG-WFe7JrnXGqy6Yu2KYNFEXf3MoiK8dCCuCxlKuqKAior5aODUbL8E7_qtQs6q7VOKkqlcIaqI7XYXtMn2_2bz94hPigRx3X/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-07-31+at+8.56.06+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk2LN89qYKWMhVf78Td_5PLfwBQSiin5WxorPQf3BjYIgeG-WFe7JrnXGqy6Yu2KYNFEXf3MoiK8dCCuCxlKuqKAior5aODUbL8E7_qtQs6q7VOKkqlcIaqI7XYXtMn2_2bz94hPigRx3X/s320/Screen+shot+2012-07-31+at+8.56.06+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>And here is the <a href="http://www.d.umn.edu/lib/index.htm">University of Minnesota Duluth Libraries' widget</a> with survey link:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzQ8Z7kJle5neRrfmehqoHAJpGFJNrEay9X8TxCcfUy5M31kdyFryDfJcoQAhnaaJlwAuXZm6gtWnlMwiK_sDyZ6cpEgE5CTOJBHAH37Y-vQP_6iC6WRnQstErZZfaKeuM2LjWwzVJ04As/s1600/Screen+shot+2012-07-31+at+11.42.33+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzQ8Z7kJle5neRrfmehqoHAJpGFJNrEay9X8TxCcfUy5M31kdyFryDfJcoQAhnaaJlwAuXZm6gtWnlMwiK_sDyZ6cpEgE5CTOJBHAH37Y-vQP_6iC6WRnQstErZZfaKeuM2LjWwzVJ04As/s320/Screen+shot+2012-07-31+at+11.42.33+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div></div><div><br /><h3><span style="font-size: large;">How does your library use surveys?</span></h3><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>Do you use surveys (chat or otherwise) to improve your library's services? Or maybe you have questions for Doreen, Kim, and Gabriel? If so, please post a comment. We'd love to hear from you!<br /><br /></div></div></p>

Interested in using surveys to improve your library's virtual reference services? In this post, we've partnered with the University ...

FAQ on regional servers + New password protection feature!

<p>Our <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/faq-intro.html" target="_blank">FAQ module</a> is now available on the LibraryH3lp servers in Europe, Canada, and Singapore, in addition to our main US server.<br /><br />The FAQ module lets you quickly and easily build a <a href="http://libraryh3lp.blogspot.com/2012/09/new-feature-for-patrons-searchable-faq.html" target="_blank">searchable, browsable knowledge base for your library</a>. Plus, real-time chat and an offline e-mail form are automatically integrated so that patrons can get answers directly from you. It's one more thing included at no additional charge with your unlimited, low flat-rate LibraryH3lp subscription. More bang for your buck. Better virtual reference service for your patrons.<br /><br />And now for that new feature. Each FAQ offers the option of password protection so that only your librarians have access to your knowledge base. A couple LibraryH3lp libraries were interested in using the FAQ as an internal knowledge base for librarians rather than as a resource for patrons. We thought that was a fantastic idea! To enable password protection for your FAQ, click on the 'Require login?' checkbox in the Pages tab of the FAQ module in the admin site. <br /><br />We want to hear from you! Build your own FAQ. Try it out. Collect feedback from your librarians and patrons and <a href="mailto:support@libraryh3lp.com" target="_blank">let us know</a> how we can make it better for you.<br /><br />Oh! And one last thing. If you are building a FAQ and don't mind sharing, please leave a link to your FAQ in the comments below. We've been getting quite a few requests to see what other libraries are doing with their FAQs. We'd appreciate any inspiration you'd care to share.<br /><br /><br /></p>

Our FAQ module is now available on the LibraryH3lp servers in Europe, Canada, and Singapore, in addition to our main US server. The FAQ mod...

New feature for patrons! Searchable FAQ

<p>[Update: <a href="http://libraryh3lp.blogspot.com/2013/01/new-in-place-faq-editing.html" target="_blank">Edit your LibraryH3lp FAQ in place</a> rather than via the admin site.]<br /><br />Exciting news: your LibraryH3lp subscription or trial is now 100% more awesome. Today, we released a knowledge base feature as part of LibraryH3lp (on the main U.S. server only so far) that lets you quickly and easily build a searchable, browsable FAQ for your library. Plus, real-time chat and an offline e-mail form are automatically integrated so that patrons can get answers directly from you.<br /><br />The great thing about a FAQ is that it saves time for both librarians and patrons by providing thorough answers to commonly asked questions, questions often encountered when chatting with patrons online.  Now you can combine real-time chat with a browsable FAQ to provide a richer virtual reference experience for your patrons.<br /><br /><h3>What does it look like? </h3>Visit our shiny new <a href="http://ask.libraryh3lp.com/" target="_blank">LibraryH3lp FAQ</a> to see an example in action. There is even a built-in mobile-specific version for smart phones. Which version patrons see depends on the device browsing the FAQ. And yes, your FAQ comes automatically with a mobile specific version too!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh96cqG87xlvBpmM7EQtDAdZn8Cn0Ul3hr2EXCiuD8IA1coWkzbIe7kI_1V4t-TKMIsZeHQRBcIiVDEfzo9GtjYIcu3tKwIU7-x3TStyEdDS_zZMV81mfwcAYRovwa9ZjJYROmb5VzFwBM/s1600/drop-down-blog.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh96cqG87xlvBpmM7EQtDAdZn8Cn0Ul3hr2EXCiuD8IA1coWkzbIe7kI_1V4t-TKMIsZeHQRBcIiVDEfzo9GtjYIcu3tKwIU7-x3TStyEdDS_zZMV81mfwcAYRovwa9ZjJYROmb5VzFwBM/s640/drop-down-blog.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screenshot of our <a href="http://ask.libraryh3lp.com/" target="_blank">FAQ demo site</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The FAQ is comprised of three basic types of pages. Each type of page has an instant search at the top, contact information to the right, and a tag cloud of topics to the right. The <b><a href="http://ask.libraryh3lp.com/" target="_blank">primary page</a></b> contains all of your questions. Yup. Keep scrolling. They're all there. Or you can look at all questions tagged with a particular <b><a href="http://ask.libraryh3lp.com/topics/168" target="_blank">topic</a></b>. To see that in action, click a topic in the tag cloud on the right. Topics are a handy way to categories the various types of questions. And finally, there are <b><a href="http://ask.libraryh3lp.com/questions/429" target="_blank">individual question pages</a></b>.<br /><br />You can see of the number of views for each question and the last updated time stamp indicating answer "freshness." And there is a built-in social component as well. Vote a question up as useful (a like) or down (a dislike) as not useful and see a tally of the likes and dislikes from other viewers.<br /><br />Look and feel for the FAQ is highly customizable. You have access to all the underlying templates used to create the three basic types of pages, giving you complete control over the look of your own FAQ site. Restructure and build upon the default templates as needed to best suit your needs. But you don't have to start from scratch, we also offer 12 preconfigured themes for your FAQ. You can see each of the themes in action in our LibraryH3lp FAQ. To switch between themes, use the drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner. Pam likes Spacelab. Eric digs Journal. Amy prefers Superhero.<br /><br /><h3>How do I build my own?</h3>There are two tabs available within the new FAQs tab of the <a href="https://libraryh3lp.com/admin" target="_blank">admin site</a> - Questions and Pages. Use these to manage your questions and customize your pages respectively.<br /><br />The <b>Questions </b>tab shows a tabular listing of all your questions. You can add, edit, and remove questions. Plus you can see the number of views, likes, dislikes, last update date, and topics for each question.  You can do keyword searches to easily find existing questions you'd like to edit, and you can sort by any column heading.<br /><br />The <b>Pages </b>tab is where you control the look and feel of your site.  Choose your theme, select the queue you want chats directed to, and enter an email address for offline queries, and you're all set.  You also have complete control over your site's HTML in the Templates area, if you need it.<br /><br />We take care of the hosting and your FAQ gets its own address, shown on the Pages tab as Site. Also on the Pages tab, you can enter a custom URL for your site within your own domain as a CNAME.  This means that instead of your patrons seeing your FAQ URL as "something.ask.libraryh3lp.com," you can show them something using your own domain instead, for example, "faq.myschool.edu."  Your network administrator will be able to help out with the needed DNS tweaking on your library's end.  <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/faq-intro.html" target="_blank">More documentation.</a><br /><br /><h3>Making the FAQ better.</h3>All of the basics are there. We have lots of ideas for improvements, but we also want to hear from you! Build your own FAQ. Try it out. Collect feedback from your librarians and patrons and <a href="mailto:support@libraryh3lp.com">let us know</a> how we can make it better for you.<br /><br />And finally, the best part of all is that there is no fine print or gotchas. It's just one more thing you get with your unlimited, low flat-rate LibraryH3lp subscription.  More bang for your buck. Better virtual reference service for your patrons.<br /><br /><br /></p>

[Update: Edit your LibraryH3lp FAQ in place  rather than via the admin site.] Exciting news: your LibraryH3lp subscription or trial is now 1...

Recent U.S. server downtime

<p>Customers using the main U.S. server were affected by server instability on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week brought on by high load. Wednesday's downtime severely impacted our customers' ability to chat with patrons during peak use hours. We understand that you rely on us to provide stable services so you in turn can provide a high quality of virtual reference for your patrons. We sincerely apologize for the disruption during this hectic time of year and thank everyone for their kind patience while we worked to correct the issue. Last Wednesday night, we released an infrastructure upgrade to our main U.S. server designed to greatly enhance our long-term stability, performance, and ability to scale quickly in advance of future crises.<br /><br />The infrastructure changes are part of a long-term plan to improve performance and fault-tolerance by way of redundant systems distributed across the network. Because the migration to the new architecture was already in-progress, we were able to complete the restructuring by the end of the day on Wednesday and get chat back on track as quickly as possible. Additional servers were added Friday morning to enhance performance.<br /><br />We take great pride that our server uptime over the last year is 99.91% (including the downtime last week) which is above the industry average of 99%.  These changes will ensure our continued high availability moving forward so that you are able to provide the best quality of service for your patrons.</p>

Customers using the main U.S. server were affected by server instability on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week brought on by high load. Wedn...

New to LibraryH3lp? Here's a roadmap.

<p>Coming to LibraryH3lp from another chat system, you may feel that your administrative user interface has suddenly transformed from:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEircpu0aPomWcGA5pR9ERY-N18gtgFABHJDsIyAPMhbRckoiSeJGSoDczib2X_eZ7KfeexDYjfC-nAVHjoZfbEY4maJLVaDL4-mPeZmj1-DdxODQbO0eJYGj5-mn4tA4EstSbcAkwveSdI/s1600/69075298_d84059ca01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEircpu0aPomWcGA5pR9ERY-N18gtgFABHJDsIyAPMhbRckoiSeJGSoDczib2X_eZ7KfeexDYjfC-nAVHjoZfbEY4maJLVaDL4-mPeZmj1-DdxODQbO0eJYGj5-mn4tA4EstSbcAkwveSdI/s320/69075298_d84059ca01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />To something more like:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRSqdqIkfkfti3tB_zTURA_cNJz3myFAU1ksPCTFEuh3uV_uj7VYz0-JDDC-BaV_iSgcT7rjyYqW-87PL9q_t8VFY2I-RP5gBlSkv1f35vXlyQ5aV69O5yF58iT557JUThCGCf1gKqoKc/s1600/090810homer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRSqdqIkfkfti3tB_zTURA_cNJz3myFAU1ksPCTFEuh3uV_uj7VYz0-JDDC-BaV_iSgcT7rjyYqW-87PL9q_t8VFY2I-RP5gBlSkv1f35vXlyQ5aV69O5yF58iT557JUThCGCf1gKqoKc/s320/090810homer.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />We don't deny that LibraryH3lp has lots of features, but it is not as complicated as it may appear at first glance. Yes, we have more buttons, dials, levers, and switches, but they each exist for a very specific purpose, and together they work to provide your <i>patrons</i> with the simplicity of "Push for Cheese".  Here is a walkthrough of the core concepts.<br /><br />Fundamentally, of course, is the <b>widget</b> - that box you stick in a web page that the user can type in to chat with you in real-time.  In single-operator systems like Meebo, a widget corresponds exactly to one <b>user</b>: you have one login, and this is used to sign in and answer chats.  If you share the login among multiple people, things get a little weird because all of the guest-side messages go out to all of the people using that single account. There's no need to further review the other shortcomings of this setup, as you've experienced them, but it is easy to understand and setup.<br /><br />Building on that, multi-operator systems like LibraryH3lp break the one-to-one limitation of single-account systems like Meebo.  You still have a widget, but you can have multiple user operators, all of whom can answer chats without tripping over each other.  This is a popular arrangement because it is a lot more powerful to use and only slightly more challenging to deploy.  The weaknesses of this system center primarily on organization.  But LibraryH3lp has organizational knobs too.<br /><br />From the patron's external point-of-view, you're a library, but of course internally you have branches and departments, individuals, and specialties.  When the patron contacts the "library" (via chat, phone, or email), job one is to direct him or her the individual or department best suited to provide help.<br /><br />To facilitate this, LibraryH3lp breaks the concept of a widget into two pieces: a widget and a <b>queue</b>.  The widget is still a box on your web page, and the queue specifies the target or destination of the chat.  Another way to think of a queue is as a tag or a label.  Some librarians are reference librarians, some are science specialists... some are even both.  Queues are a way to organize your users.  So you can have a widget in your page that targets your circulation or reference queue, but when an ILL question comes in you can transfer that chat to your ILL queue (tag/label) so the patron receives the most appropriate help.  Because widgets and queues are separate, this works whether the chat comes in from the web, IM, or SMS.<br /><br />Of course, once you've organized your users into queues, you shouldn't need to setup a "chat dispatch" operator who answers and routes chats.  That's silly... let the computer do it, that's what it's for.  And that is what we call a <b>service</b>.  It's a way to describe how to route the chat to the most appropriate operator.  You can say, in effect, if any of my science librarians are online right now, send the chat to them.  Otherwise send the chat to the reference desk so they can help as best they can.  If none of my librarians are available for chat, send the patron to my <a href="http://chatstaff.us/">after hours backup service</a> or to my email form.<br /><br />With all the knobs comes flexibility. Instead of just a user and a widget, we give you any number of <b>users</b> to answer chats, <b>queues</b> to organize your users, <b>widgets</b> to display in your web pages, and <b>services</b> to ensure that your patrons get the best help possible.<br /><br />Most importantly, you don't need to worry about any of that if you don't want to.  When you signup for LibraryH3lp, we set you up with one service, one widget, one queue, and one user, in a way that is functionally nearly identical to a Meebo setup.  And we send you a code snippet in your welcome letter to do all of this.  Once you've put that code into your web pages, you can learn what the knobs do later and never have to make any code changes.  That's as close to "Push for Cheese" as any nuclear power plant can get.<br /><br /><br /><span id="goog_78755167"></span><span id="goog_78755168"></span></p>

Coming to LibraryH3lp from another chat system, you may feel that your administrative user interface has suddenly transformed from: To somet...

New Services Designer (plus handy tip for creating tutorials)

<p>With LibraryH3lp's new Services Designer, it's even easier to create code snippets for embedding chat widgets into your website!<br /><br />Why snippets? With a single snippet, you can:<br /><ul><li>Associate widgets with queues, to give your chat entry points the right look and feel.</li><li>Customize how your chat service looks when offline.</li><li>Add custom HTML code before or after your chat widget.</li><li>Easily switch between our <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/which-widget.html" target="_blank">three widget types</a>.</li><li>Create <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/service-rollover.html" target="_blank">Service Rollover</a>, if desired.</li><li>Make changes from within the <a href="https://libraryh3lp.com/admin" target="_blank">admin site</a> without modifying your web pages!</li></ul><br /><div>Code snippets can be pasted into your web pages, <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/libguides.html" target="_blank">LibGuides</a>, and pretty much any place that accepts HTML and JavaScript.  Our code snippets are optimized for speed and won't interfere with loading of your larger web pages.<br /><br />Once a code snippet is deployed, you can make changes to the look and feel of your chat service solely through the LibraryH3lp admin site.  (Hopefully, your IT department won't start to think that you don't like them anymore since you can do everything yourself.)</div><br /><h4> Services Designer Tutorial (powered by iorad)</h4><div>With a new tool comes new <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/putting-widget-on-page#service-designer" target="_blank">documentation</a>, and we tried a new-to-us tool (<a href="http://www.iorad.com/" target="_blank">iorad</a>) to <b>quickly </b>get a tutorial for the new Services Design up and running.<br /><br />[Blog post edited Oct 13, 2014, since the iorad-backed tutorial content is no longer available via iorad's site.  PS] </div></p>

With LibraryH3lp's new Services Designer, it's even easier to create code snippets for embedding chat widgets into your website! Why...

Zawinski's Law: LibraryH3lp, now with 100% more email

<p>(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski.27s_law_of_software_envelopment">See</a>.)<br /><br />I think Pam and Amy are all blogged-out, so it falls on me to tell you about our new email integration features.  No, we have not written yet another email reference tool, and let's hope it doesn't come to that.  Instead, we've made it easier to combine LibraryH3lp with your existing email service.<br /><br />First up, a quick note that these new features are on top of our existing email integration, <i>Tag for Followup</i>.  Tag for Followup is in the webchat client and lets operators send a transcript and explanatory note easily, without specifying a particular email address.  It transparently emails the operator involved in the chat, the owner of the queue, and the top-level admin, so that the referral can get handled.  [Edit: <a href="http://libraryh3lp.blogspot.com/2013/01/new-tag-for-followup-email-behavior.html"><i>Tag for Followup</i> has been improved</a> since this post was published.]  If the operator wants to target a specific email address, that's what <i>email transcript</i> is for. <br /><br />Over the years we've noticed that occasionally patrons will email questions to queues.  This is understandable given that XMPP Jabber IDs look like email addresses, and services like Google and Facebook encourage users to conflate the two.  We want these questions to get to you.  By default, queues are <i>opted out</i> of email forwarding.  To opt in, you need only define a forwarding email address for your queue in the admin site.  Then anything sent to the queue will be sent on to you.<br /><br />We've also noticed that patrons will all too often mistype their email address when sending themselves a transcript of their chat session.  Apparently "edu" is about as hard to type correctly as "the" ("edg" is a popular variation).  Who would have thought?  We want you to be able to catch these errors and fix them, without us storing any patron-identifying information.  Even though today's students prefer chat for communication, email still plays an important role in archival storage.<br /><br />To catch bounces, transcripts are now sent from the queue, using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_envelope_return_path">VERP</a>.  This way, bounces will go back to the queue and on to your forwarding address, with the patron's alleged email address clearly visible in the "from" line.  (The point of VERP is that there is no standard for bounces, and the patron may be using their own email forwarding service, so this is the only reliable way to determine where the message was intended to go.)  Oh, and emails will respect the "profile" argument, so bounces and replies can be directed to the most appropriate specialist.<br /><br />As a bonus, patrons can now directly reply to emailed transcripts in order to continue the conversation... which I guess means we'll be joining with Google and Facebook in encouraging users to confuse JIDs and email addresses.  This falls under the category of "if you can't beat 'em..."<br /><br />Because this is email, a few words about spam are in order.  Yes, patrons sometimes send email to queues.  Spammers <i>frequently</i> send email to queues, because they scrape the Jabber IDs out of your web pages.  If you use our new-style code, as produced by the service designer, this will not be an issue.  Either way, our server does spam and virus filtering on all email before forwarding it to you.  (But if the filtering is not sufficient, you can always opt back out of email forwarding.)<br /><br />Also, as desirable as it would be to email transcripts "from" your email address rather than "queue@chat.libraryh3lp.com", that's a recipe for getting flagged as spam and would cause problems with getting transcripts to patrons.  The flip side of that is bounces (failed attempts to deliver to patrons) may well get delivered to your spam folder, depending on the particulars of your email server.  (This is because sending fake bounce messages is a known spam technique, and that's what these emails look like, but safety and convenience have been at war with each other since networking was invented.)  In this case, we're choosing the patron's convenience over yours.<br /><br />Anyway, there you have it: LibraryH3lp, now with 100% more email.<br /><br /></p>

( See .) I think Pam and Amy are all blogged-out, so it falls on me to tell you about our new email integration features.  No, we have not w...

Use the standards, Luke

<p>As part of our ALA 2012 series, we last discussed how <a href="http://libraryh3lp.blogspot.com/2012/06/you-dont-have-to-pay-more-for-more.html">the ability to create unlimited numbers of operator accounts in LibraryH3lp maximizes flexibility in a virtual reference service</a>. In this post, we're talking flexibility again, but in a different way. This time we're talking staffing <b>software </b>flexibility. That is, how you chat with patrons.<br /><br /><h3> Options = Flexibility</h3>The earliest prototype of LibraryH3lp (circa 2007) was a specialized version of the open source Pidgin client. Eric (our chief architect) wrote it to <a href="http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/107" target="_blank">overcome the technical problems inherent in offering a collaborative Meebo Me widget and IM chat service between UNC, Duke, and NCSU</a>. We learned pretty quickly that providing a single staffing interface was incredibly limiting. Then Eric made a pivotal technical decision that translated into ultimate staffing flexibility; Eric decided to use XMPP (a.k.a. Jabber) for LibraryH3lp.<br /><br />If you've ever used Meebo, imo, GTalk or Facebook chat, then you've already used XMPP. XMPP is an open protocol for instant messaging, not something that we made up ourselves. So there are <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/suitable-jabber-clients.html">lots of chat clients</a> out there that support it, providing you with many options for staffing your virtual reference service. You can use our software or someone else's. The choice is always yours.<br /><br /><b>Staff from your browser</b>. We have a nice, simple web-based chat client that tightly integrates with core LibraryH3lp features such as tag for follow-up, transfer, and blocking.  You can use most any browser (except Opera) with this chat client. Every computer comes with a web browser, so you are good to go. Nothing for you to download or install. Firefox and Chrome users can opt to get desktop notifications, which provides a visual cue, in addition to the audible cue available in all browsers, of incoming patron messages. <br /><br />If you already use another browser-based chat client like imo, Zoho chat, or Trillian web (RIP Meebo Messenger), you can opt to integrate your LibraryH3lp account there and skip our native web client.<br /><br /><b>Staff from your desktop or laptop</b>. Prefer to use a desktop IM client? You can staff LibraryH3lp from any chat client that supports XMPP. This includes Pidgin, Adium, Trillian, iChat, and many others. Staffing LibraryH3lp this way is pretty handy if you want to aggregate your LibraryH3lp account with your personal IM accounts. And desktop clients are super customizable and configurable.<br /><br />And, as we described in yesterday's post, having lots of your staff signed in with LibraryH3lp accounts means they can be available for transfers or direct IM even if they don't staff any public-facing chat widgets.  Aggregating your LibraryH3lp account into your existing IM client is a very easy way to achieve that.<br /><br /><b>Staff from your mobile device</b>. Got a smartphone or tablet? Put it to work for virtual reference! Roving librarians outfitted with something like in iPad or smart phone can staff LibraryH3lp with chat apps that support XMPP, like IM+ and OneTeam.<br /><br />Both IM+ and OneTeam offer robust and reliable push notifications so that you won't miss patron messages, even if you're in another app or have your device locked.<br /><br />Also, remember that you have internal IM available with LibraryH3lp, so if you're not actually staffing any public chat services from your mobile device, your colleagues can IM you when you're out and about.  It's a really handy way to stay in touch when you're away from the library.<br /><br /><b>A chat platform.</b>  When you combine LibraryH3lp's unlimited operator accounts with standards-based staffing options, you can start to see why we proudly call LibraryH3lp a platform. We provide all the bits and pieces, and you can use them to design a crazy-good virtual reference tuned to your library's needs.<br /><br /><b>The XMPP standard is powerful.  </b>Our special LibraryH3lp features like transfer, blocking, tag for followup, profile pages, etc, are all achievable through the XMPP standard and commands. Client support for extended features varies and will improve over time.  Our web client provides the simplest access to our fanciest features currently, placing them right in the conversation window. But most are also available through external clients.<br /><br /><b>But that's not the end of the story.</b>  There's even more goodness with XMPP above and beyond staffing flexibility. Since it is an open protocol, it is ready-made for integration into other things. That's a big part of the reason we're able to have gateways for other IM networks like AIM, Yahoo!, and MSN. And, this can go beyond just IM. But that's a story for another day.<br /><br />We invite you to <a href="http://libraryh3lp.com/">learn more about LibraryH3lp</a> and to give us a try with a <a href="https://libraryh3lp.com/registration/register">90-day no-risk free trial</a>. Trials have no feature limitations so you can put your trial into use on your live site with real patrons before making any decisions about payment.<br /><br />More to come in our ALA 2012 series! Get automatic updates of new blog posts via <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/libraryh3lp">RSS</a> and <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=libraryh3lp&loc=en_US">e-mail</a>.</p>

As part of our ALA 2012 series, we last discussed how the ability to create unlimited numbers of operator accounts in LibraryH3lp maximizes ...

You don't have to pay more for more operators

<p><br />Hi everyone!  Lots of people have asked us if we're going to be at ALA 2012. Alas, no.<br /><br />However, we thought that the next best thing would be to have a virtual ALA 2012 presence. And, since we are in the business of virtual (reference, that is), we thought a virtual presence would be particularly fitting. This post is one of a series we'll post during ALA 2012. Please check back daily for more. Or to simply your life, get updates via <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/libraryh3lp">RSS</a> or <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=libraryh3lp&loc=en_US">e-mail</a>.<br /><br />In this post, we'd like to talk a little bit about one of the biggest features that differentiates LibraryH3lp from the available free options as well as the paid alternatives for virtual reference.<br /><br /><h3> Unlimited concurrent operators</h3><div><br /></div>All of our subscriptions come with <i>unlimited</i> concurrent operators. This is a fairly unusual feature with virtual reference and chat, especially at our <a href="https://libraryh3lp.com/pricing">price point</a>. <br /><br />No question about it. For reasons of <a href="http://libraryh3lp.blogspot.com/2012/06/welcome-to-our-new-trials-and-big-thank.html">load and scaling</a>, an unlimited service is a much tougher technical nut to crack than a limited service. From the beginning though, our primary objective has been to provide a flexible chat platform at an affordable price. This is something in which we strongly believe, and we'd like to share with you why we think the concept of 'unlimited' is so crucial to virtual reference.<br /><br />When I (this is Pam) was at UNC during the very early (pre-Meebo) virtual reference years, we used a few different chat systems. All of them had per-operator pricing. Sometimes, this wound up slowing the growth and expansion potential of our service because it meant we could not always quickly change things around the way we wanted. Our staffing model was stuck based on the operator limitation. <br /><br />What if another campus library wanted to come on board? Or what if we needed to add on a few more operators during a suddenly-busy time of the year? Or what if we wanted to start staffing out of librarian offices instead of centrally from shared computers? If we wanted to add more operators, it would cost extra. That meant we had to get in touch with both our budget people and our vendor. And that took both time and funds. Often, our staffing changes couldn’t happen until much later, mostly because of things like fiscal year issues.<br /><br />A fair bit of tweaking can be required to develop a suitable staffing model for a virtual reference service, given the schedules and duties of everyone involved. Every library is different.  Inflexible staffing can lead to limited service hours, which can lead to low usage. Low service usage makes it harder to prove the value proposition.<br /><br />So, when we started building LibraryH3lp, we sought to design a chat platform, or infrastructure. We didn't want to impose any particular usage model but instead sought to provide a system that would give libraries the most flexibility possible for growth and experimentation.  This meant that the library should be able to create any number of operator accounts any time they wished, and that any or all of those operator accounts could be in use simultaneously.<br /><br /><h3> Chat is just another communication tool</h3><div><br /></div>Chat is a virtual visit from your patron. To make the most of this virtual visit, both you and your patron need a platform that makes communication as easy and reliable as possible.<br /><br />When you add unlimited operators into the mix, you open the door to interesting possibilities. For example, you can have staff who don't need a public-facing chat presence help out with your service. Maybe staff in your ILL, document delivery, or IT department would like to be available to take transfers of difficult or specialized questions. They can function as a sort of "tier 2" support level and only get questions that require their specific expertise as transfers, after the public service staff have done what they can to assist the patron.<br /><br />Often, a patron's entire question can be handled right there through chat even if it has to get passed to another department. No need to switch to phone or e-mail unless one of those will work better for the situation at hand. Keeping the entire experience in chat makes the library transparent and the patron experience seamless. When the patron started their chat with the library, they probably weren't concerned with which specific department they needed help from. Since recipients of transfers can see the prior conversation, they also won't have to re-explain their situation to multiple staff members. If it turns out that their question will require more time, it's easy to email their transcript to the right person for follow-up.<br /><br />And why just think of a chat as being between librarian and patron? In the course of a day, librarians talk with each other continuously to carry out the work of the library. With LibraryH3lp, you also gain a powerful enterprise IM system for internal communications because librarians can IM each other directly.<br /><br /><h3> More posts to come</h3><div><br /></div>We plan to regularly blog during ALA 2012 and we'll also be following the #ala12 discussions on Twitter via <a href="http://twitter.com/libraryh3lp" style="background-color: white;">@libraryh3lp</a>. In the meantime, we invite you to learn more about <a href="http://libraryh3lp.com/">LibraryH3lp</a> and to give us a try through our <a href="http://libraryh3lp.com/registration/register">90-day risk-free trial</a>. Trials have no feature limitations so you can put your trial into use on your live site with real patrons before making any decisions about payment.</p>

Hi everyone!  Lots of people have asked us if we're going to be at ALA 2012. Alas, no. However, we thought that the next best thing woul...

Welcome to our new trials! And a big 'thank you' to our existing customers.

<p>Welcome to LibraryH3lp, Meebo users!  And thanks, so much, to our current users for the wonderful recommendations.  We sincerely appreciate your enthusiastic support!<br /><br />We've had a huge influx of new trials since Meebo's announcement.  We're very excited to have the opportunity to show all our new users everything that LibraryH3lp has to offer!<br /><br />It's a very busy time for everyone involved with virtual reference.  A few people have asked us if our system is capable of handling a big influx of users. The answer is a resounding, "Yes!" <br /><br />LibraryH3lp has a history of fast growth, more than doubling in each of the last four years.  We are in great shape to handle increased load in a variety of different ways.  We've been building and scaling our system since we began. We currently provide the platform for the busy state-wide NCknows service.  And we're ready for a rapid period of growth.<br /><br />So, what sorts of loads do you find on any virtual reference system?<br /><br /><b>Operator logins.</b>  Our core Jabber/XMPP server is under light load currently.  We're confident enough in this that we continue to offer <i>unlimited</i> numbers of concurrent operator accounts to everyone.  You never have to pay extra for more operators.  Just create however many you need and build your service and staffing models the way you want to.<br /><br /><b>Presence.</b>  This is a big one for any chat service that dynamically shows your online/offline state.  Presence load can be significant once users begin placing chat in high-traffic areas, such as inside every page of a catalog at a busy library.  We're in good shape here, too.  And, our widget shows real-time presence in most browsers. We also offer a <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/presence-api.html">Presence API</a> that lets you do some very fancy things with chat on your website.<br /><br />In the last 24 hours, we processed about 33 million presence requests from over 300,000 unique IP addresses; a presence request happens each time someone loads a web page with a LibraryH3lp widget or presence badge.  Since it's summer right now, it's a safe bet that presence load was higher than this a couple of months ago when the Spring academic term was in full swing.<br /><br /><b>Widget loads.</b>  You can have as many widgets as you'd like across your website or websites. We use Amazon's CloudFront to distribute our widget and compressed JavaScript files; these components have been optimized over the years to get them as small and fast-loading as possible. <br /><br /><b>Chatting.</b>  Chatting is nice and snappy, with accurate typing notification on both ends of the conversation.  We offer <i>unlimited</i> chats on servers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Singapore to give our international community of users the best possible performance.  In the month of April, there were 63,483 chats answered on the US server alone.  That's a lot of patrons getting help!<br /><br />So <a href="https://libraryh3lp.com/registration/register">come on in</a>. The water is fine.  :)<br /><br />P.S.: Don't miss the resources in <a href="http://libraryh3lp.blogspot.com/2012/06/libraryh3lp-demo-and-overview-for-meebo.html">our last blog post</a>: our quick drop-in Meebo replacement guide and our overview video!</p>

Welcome to LibraryH3lp, Meebo users!  And thanks, so much, to our current users for the wonderful recommendations.  We sincerely appreciate ...

LibraryH3lp Demo and Overview for Meebo Users

<p>Since Meebo announced that it is <a href="http://www.meebo.com/support/article/175/">retiring numerous services</a>, including Meebo Messenger and Meebo Me widgets, as of July 11, we've received many inquiries about LibraryH3lp. To help introduce Meebo users to <a href="http://libraryh3lp.com/">LibraryH3lp</a>, we've put together a couple of things.<br /><br /><h4> Meebo Drop-In Replacement Doc</h4>For the time-pressed librarian, we have a new doc: <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/meebo-drop-in-replacement.html">Meebo Drop-In Replacement</a>.  No time to consider what you might do with your <b>unlimited </b>operator accounts or other new features right now?  This is the guide for you!<br /><br /><h4> Overview Video</h4>We also created the following 13 minute demo and overview to give those already familiar with Meebo a good idea of how many of LibraryH3lp's features work.<br /><br />Once you press play, you'll be able to view it full screen using the monitor icon at the bottom right-hand side of the video window. <span style="text-align: center;">Can't see the video below? </span><a href="http://www.screencast.com/t/zWivbejs2" style="text-align: center;">Click here instead</a><span style="text-align: center;">.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <object data="http://content.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/23e135aa-f273-4729-993f-803b0ff1cd80/scplayer.swf" height="350" id="scPlayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450"><param name="movie" value="http://content.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/23e135aa-f273-4729-993f-803b0ff1cd80/scplayer.swf" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /> <param name="flashVars" value="thumb=http://content.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/23e135aa-f273-4729-993f-803b0ff1cd80/FirstFrame.jpg&containerwidth=450&containerheight=350&autohide=true&autostart=false&loop=false&showendscreen=true&showsearch=false&showstartscreen=true&tocdoc=left&xmp=sc.xmp&content=http://content.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/23e135aa-f273-4729-993f-803b0ff1cd80/Meebo%20to%20Libraryh3lp%20Migration.mp4&blurover=false" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="scale" value="showall" /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /> <param name="base" value="http://content.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/23e135aa-f273-4729-993f-803b0ff1cd80/" /> <iframe type="text/html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;" src="http://www.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/23e135aa-f273-4729-993f-803b0ff1cd80/embed" height="350" width="450"></iframe></object></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Also, we've condensed the <a href="http://libraryh3lp.com/overview">key features of LibraryH3lp a one page PDF</a> that you can download.<br /><br />For those seeking a free replacement for Meebo, we have suggested <a href="http://libraryh3lp.blogspot.com/2012/06/meebo-migrations-alternatives-for.html">alternative options</a> as well.<br /><br />And, just another mention of our sister product, <a href="http://mycustomercloud.com/">My Customer Cloud</a>. It runs the same software as LibraryH3lp, with all the same features: unlimited operators, queues, widgets, and widget views. But instead of a flat-rate subscription, it has per-chat pricing and comes with a $20 free trial (100 free chats). This means it can be dirt cheap for libraries with low chat volume. The other difference is that with My Customer Cloud, your library pays with a credit card directly online. With LibraryH3lp, we can also send you invoices, take checks, and work with purchase orders. </div></p>

Since Meebo announced that it is retiring numerous services , including Meebo Messenger and Meebo Me widgets, as of July 11, we've recei...

Meebo Migrations: Alternatives for Libraries

<p><div style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, hirakakupro-w3, osaka, 'ms pgothic', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">As librarians around the world are aware, Meebo has been acquired by Google and is <a href="http://www.meebo.com/support/article/175/">retiring numerous services</a>, including Meebo Messenger and Meebo Me widgets, as of July 11, 2012.  This is a huge moment for libraries; Meebo revolutionized virtual reference by doing away with an entry form altogether.  Many libraries saw their chat statistics go through the roof when they deployed Meebo Me widgets and began advertising buddy names on IM networks like AIM, MSN, and Google Talk.  Our hats are off to them!</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, hirakakupro-w3, osaka, 'ms pgothic', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="margin: 0px;">But sadly, many libraries now find themselves in a virtual reference vacuum. We've devoted the last several years to building -- and scaling -- LibraryH3lp to provide an unlimited, affordable chat platform for libraries.  </span><span style="margin: 0px;">While we certainly hope you'll consider trying out LibraryH3lp or its sister product My Customer Cloud as an alternative to Meebo Me widgets, there are many possible paths forward depending on your specific situation.</span></div><h4 style="border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px 7px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> I need something free, as close to Meebo as possible</h4><div style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, hirakakupro-w3, osaka, 'ms pgothic', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Free alternatives are still possible, especially if you do not need multiple staff accounts. If you have been using Meebo Me for widgets, Meebo Messenger for staffing your service, and have advertised screen names on other IM networks like AIM and Google Talk, take a look at <a href="https://imo.im/" style="background-color: transparent;">imo</a> or <a href="http://www.trillian.im/" style="background-color: transparent;">Trillian</a> web.  [Update: <a href="https://chat.zoho.com/" target="_blank">Zoho chat</a> is shaping up to be a really nice free alternative and includes its own embeddable widget.]</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, hirakakupro-w3, osaka, 'ms pgothic', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">With both imo and Trillian, you aggregate multiple public IM screen names into one librarian-side login in a web messenger client. If you add on something like a Wimzi widget (AIM), you'll have something very close to what you had with Meebo, with IM screen names on a variety of networks, and widgets to put on your web pages.  Both also have messenger clients for staffing from other platforms.  Test any mobile apps you want to use very carefully for push notification functionality, which can be very finicky.<br /><br />If you don't need your messenger client to be web-based, you can also certainly use multi-protocol desktop clients like Pidgin (PC, Linux) or Adium (Mac) to bring together accounts across IM networks. <br /><br />Just be aware that having more than one person bring these accounts online simultaneously may cause confusion, or disconnects, depending on the specific IM protocol.</div><h4 style="border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px 7px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> I'd prefer software that supports multiple operators</h4><div style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, hirakakupro-w3, osaka, 'ms pgothic', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">There are lots and lots of other options out there nowadays if you need an alternative system that routes chats to multiple librarians. However, m</span><span style="font-size: 13px;">ost products with true multi-operator chat routing won't be free.  </span><span style="font-size: 13px;">We've compiled three time-saving tips that you can use when you compare multi-operator systems.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, hirakakupro-w3, osaka, 'ms pgothic', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="margin: 0px;">Look for a robust routing model</b>. A multi-operator system should be robust enough to handle scenarios like this one:</div><ol style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, hirakakupro-w3, osaka, 'ms pgothic', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 10px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 20px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Persons A and B are staffing the service.</li><li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Person A accepts an incoming chat.</li><li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The patron falls idle for a minute or two.</li><li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Person A logs out.</li><li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The patron sends a new message.</li><li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Person B should get the patron's chat. If not, that is a serious routing problem because this scenario <b style="margin: 0px;">will </b>occur with some frequency.</li></ol><div style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, hirakakupro-w3, osaka, 'ms pgothic', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="margin: 0px;">Pretend you are a patron</b>. See what happens when patrons internally navigate your site and when they follow links <b style="margin: 0px;">off of </b>your site (say, from your library page into an Ebsco database). Embedded-style widgets have issues with patrons clicking links on the larger web page. So it is nice if embedded widgets have a way for the patron to detach the chat from the rest of the page.  With floating-style widgets, it is also important to see what happens if you try to lead your patron away from your own domain. Librarians in particular will often be leading our patrons off of our own sites because of the nature of our work.</div><div style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, hirakakupro-w3, osaka, 'ms pgothic', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="margin: 0px;">Know how many simultaneous widget views you are allowed.</b> Some systems only allow a finite number of patrons to <b style="margin: 0px;">view</b> your widget simultaneously; this is in addition to limits on number of active simultaneous chats or librarian logins. Most libraries have lots of simultaneous viewers on their sites, and it's important to know if your widget will show up for all of them or if there is a cap.<br /><br />In sum, please be sure to test your chosen solution thoroughly.  Providing robust, multi-operator chat at web scale isn't a trivial problem.  Nearly all systems will provide a free trial of varying length, and you should take full advantage of that.  And, if you decide to go with another free solution at this time, that is still a good decision.  In the happy event that your traffic causes your service to outgrow that system in the future, there are certainly affordable migration paths available for you.</div><h4 style="border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px 7px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"> Please consider LibraryH3lp</h4><div style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, hirakakupro-w3, osaka, 'ms pgothic', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 15px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://libraryh3lp.com/">LibraryH3lp</a> offers an</span><span style="font-size: 13px;"> </span>affordable flat fee<span style="font-size: 13px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13px;">for unlimited chats, operators, and widgets, and widget views</span>. You also get integrated IM networks and SMS, lengthy free trials, quality assurance and reporting capabilities, downloadable transcripts, and more.<br /><br />In order to guide you through the process of switching from Meebo, we've compiled a <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/meebo-migration.html">detailed Meebo Migration Guide</a>.<span style="font-size: 13px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13px;">With LibraryH3lp, this guide will help ensure a smooth transition for your staff and patrons.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Edit 2015-08-12: Removed reference to My Customer Cloud.</span></div></p>

As librarians around the world are aware, Meebo has been acquired by Google and is retiring numerous services , including Meebo Messenger an...

Chatstaff: Afterhours Coverage Now Available

<p>Do you need afterhours staffing of your Libraryh3lp based service?  <b>Guest blogger Phil Blank</b> announces a new service,  <a href="http://chatstaff.us/">Chatstaff</a>:<br /><br /><div>North Carolina's state-wide service, <a href="http://ncknows.org/">NCknows</a>, transitioned to LibraryH3lp last year.  With that change, I started managing a dedicated crew of librarians to provide the after hours coverage.  Our transition to <a href="http://libraryh3lp.com/">LibraryH3lp</a> and our own backup service has meant: </div><div><ul><li><b>Higher Quality</b>: Our librarians pick up calls faster, spend more time with patrons and are empowered to go the extra mile to make sure patrons get what they need. No more dropped patrons due to long waits or response times.</li><li><b>A More Popular Service</b>: Traffic has increased dramatically since we transitioned to LibraryH3lp and provided our own staff. </li><li><b>More Savings</b>: We've been able to increase traffic, increase quality and provide software that is more flexible and easier to use while increasing savings at the same time.</li></ul>Now that NCknows has been up and running for nearly a year with this arrangement,  we are ready to expand this service to other libraries and consortia, and I've formed a new company, Chatstaff, to provide this service to other libraries and consortia.  My hope is to continue to provide the same high-level of quality service, while further reducing the cost for all participants.</div><div><br />Chatstaff is designed to offer backup and after hours coverage for virtual reference services. It is founded by NCknows Coordinator Phil Blank and librarian Pam Sessoms. We aim to provide the highest quality reference coverage in a way that makes sense for all libraries. Here's how it works: </div><div><ul><li>Our staff is composed of a select crew of MLS level librarians. They have extensive experience with academic and public libraries and LibraryH3lp.</li><li>We can work with you to decide your hours of coverage. Unlike other services, Chatstaff is flexible to your needs.  Do you need 24/7? Great, we can help, but if you only need after hours coverage or select hours, we can provide that as well and save you resources. We can also help you implement the service, generate reports or do anything else your service requires. </li><li>Cost is determined by size of population and hours of coverage. We would be happy to send you a quote - <a href="http://chatstaff.us/pricing.html">just ask</a> us using our pricing page. </li><li>When you're preparing to go live, we will work with you to make sure we have your library's information recorded so we can more easily assist your patrons and refer them back to you when necessary. After you go live, we continue to work with you to make sure the quality of the service and the effectiveness of your marketing is maximized. </li></ul><div><div>Curious about  <a href="http://chatstaff.us/">Chatstaff</a>? Let us know how we can help you!<br /><br /></div></div></div></p>

Do you need afterhours staffing of your Libraryh3lp based service?   Guest blogger Phil Blank announces a new service,  Chatstaff : North C...

Price restructuring ahead

<p>We wanted to let everyone know that we're changing our subscription rates very soon.  The new rates will go into effect for subscription terms beginning on or after June 1, 2012.  Some of those invoices will begin going out next week.  We'll get down to the financial details in a bit. But first up, here is some background information. <br /><br />When we very first started charging for LibraryH3lp, we had a very coarse payment structure because we were using PayPal for credit card processing, and that only let us have 5 payment categories.  We started out with PayPal because, honestly, we did not begin as a typical start-up venture, with investors, seed funding, and a lot of emphasis on business model.  We were primarily trying to solve a tricky technical problem in order to let libraries provide more modern chat reference services.  PayPal was the quickest, most convenient way to take payments.  Now, we have much more flexible credit card processing and can try to be more fair by being more fine-grained. <br /><br />As LibraryH3lp grew, we introduced new features, primarily targeted at large organizations and collaborative services: reports, profiles, tag-for-followup, fine-grained permissions, api access, with more to come over the summer.  LibraryH3lp is under constant new feature development.  We're also running nearly two dozen servers worldwide, including several regional servers to provide better response times for libraries outside of the US, and we're currently averaging 1,000 visits to a LibraryH3lp-enabled web page every second.<br /><br />We are aware that not everyone is interested in or wants to pay for the new features, so the bigger increases are for larger libraries that tend to use those fancier features more heavily, and we're even lowering prices for the very smallest places.  After looking at use data over the last few years, we can see that resource usage is tiny for our smallest customers, but it can scale up quickly once we start getting into population bases of around 5,000 FTE for academic institutions.  So now, we will have four payment tiers at the below 10,000 FTE/100,000 population level, whereas that used to be one single payment tier.  The average price across those four tiers is actually nearly the same as the old price.<br /><br />We could instead charge per feature or capability, and we may have to do that in the future, but LibraryH3lp has always been about affordable flat fees for unlimited use.  One major benefit of this approach is that it allows you to restructure your service and add new queues, operators and service capabilities without having to ask permission from your vendor or purchasing department.  Also, as a small company, we'd have a hard time pricing everyone on an individual basis.  Creating a system that controls access to features based on whether or not specific features have been paid for would require a fair bit of programming effort. We'd rather devote our programming time to improving the virtual reference capabilities of the system for everyone. <br /><br />So, what does our rate change look like?  Typical small to mid-sized libraries will see an increase of $100-200/yr.  Our very smallest customers will pay a little less than they have been.  Roughly half of our customers are under 10,000 FTE and will continue to pay < $1/day for unlimited use of an extremely flexible virtual reference platform. Please note the per month break down in the table below simply provides another way of looking at the annual rate; we are retaining our annual subscription model and will not bill on a monthly basis.<br /><br /><table border="1" bordercolor="#000000" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr style="font-weight: bold;"><th>FTE (academics)</th><th>Population (publics)</th><th>Per Month</th><th>Per Year</th></tr><tr><td>less than 1,000</td><td>less than 10,000</td><td>15</td><td>180</td></tr><tr><td>1,001 - 2,500</td><td>10,001 - 25,000</td><td>20</td><td>240</td></tr><tr><td>2,501 - 5,000</td><td>25,001 - 50,000</td><td>25</td><td>300</td></tr><tr><td>5,001 - 10,000</td><td>50,001 - 100,000</td><td>30</td><td>360</td></tr><tr><td>10,001 - 15,000</td><td>100,001 - 150,000</td><td>35</td><td>420</td></tr><tr><td>15,001 - 20,000</td><td>150,001 - 200,000</td><td>40</td><td>480</td></tr><tr><td>20,001 - 25,000</td><td>200,001 - 250,000</td><td>45</td><td>540</td></tr><tr><td>25,001 - 30,000</td><td>250,001 - 300,000</td><td>50</td><td>600</td></tr><tr><td>30,001 - 35,000</td><td>300,001 - 350,000</td><td>55</td><td>660</td></tr><tr><td>35,001 - 40,000</td><td>350,001 - 400,000</td><td>60</td><td>720</td></tr><tr><td>40,001 - 45,000</td><td>400,001 - 450,000</td><td>65</td><td>780</td></tr><tr><td>45,001 - 50,000</td><td>450,001 - 500,000</td><td>70</td><td>840</td></tr><tr><td>50,001 - 60,000</td><td>500,001 - 600,000</td><td>80</td><td>960</td></tr><tr><td>60,001 - 70,000</td><td>600,001 - 700,000</td><td>90</td><td>1080</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Bigger populations for individual schools or library systems not covered in the table above will scale up the same way.  We're also getting more interest recently from collaborative services that span multiple institutions; for these, we need to generate custom quotes since there are so many variables, but they always work out to less than the sum of all the partners paying for individual subscriptions.  Please write to us at <a href="mailto:support@libraryh3lp.com">support@libraryh3lp.com</a> if you would like to discuss a collaborative service. <br /><br />As always, we'll work with libraries that <b>truly </b>will have difficulty with an increase.  We'll also work with those that are in the trial phase and have done budgeting based on the pricing in place at the time the trial started.  And of course, if we gave you a quote earlier with a different price, we will honor that.  But we think/hope that these rates are still extremely affordable for most libraries, and we hope they will work for you.</p>

We wanted to let everyone know that we're changing our subscription rates very soon.  The new rates will go into effect for subscription...

Meebo Me Widgets and LibraryH3lp

<p><b>Update</b>: Meebo tweeted us to report that their widgets are now working.<br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-in-reply-to="192313720112816128">@<a href="https://twitter.com/libraryh3lp">libraryh3lp</a> The Meebo widgets are actually working fine now!<br />— Meebo (@meebo) <a data-datetime="2012-04-17T18:18:37+00:00" href="https://twitter.com/meebo/status/192316147830505472">April 17, 2012</a></blockquote><b>Update</b>: Unfortunately, we continue to get reports of this being an intermittent and ongoing issue.<br /><br /><b>Update</b>: Meebo has announced that it is <a href="https://www.meebo.com/support/article/175/">shutting Meebo Me down on July 11, 2012</a> and the Meebo Me widgets will cease to function.<br /><br />We've had recent reports of <a href="http://www.meebome.com/" target="_blank">Meebo Me widgets</a> linked to LibraryH3lp queues as being offline even when librarians are logged into their LibraryH3lp account and available for chat. After a bit of troubleshooting, the problem appears to originate on Meebo's end. During our testing, we found that the offline the behavior often persists even when logging into a Meebo account directly.<br /><br />If you are having issues with your Meebo Me widget, you might consider switching to a LibraryH3lp chat widget. We offer <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/which-widget.html">several widget types</a>, including embedded, pop-up and follow-me. Also LibraryH3lp widgets are <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/basic-widget-customization" target="">highly customizable</a> and can be <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/putting-widget-on-page">easily added to any web page via cut and paste</a>. Our widgets, unlike Meebo Me widgets, do not require Flash. So they are also great for <a href="http://docs.libraryh3lp.com/mobile-widget.html">mobile devices and mobile websites</a>. Even though our regular widgets work on most mobile platforms, we recently started detecting mobile devices and automatically give these users our mobile-optimized widget, which provides a better mobile user experience.<br /><div><br /></div><div>If you need any help getting started with LibraryH3lp widgets as an alternative to Meebo Me widgets, give us a shout via <a href="mailto:support@libraryh3lp.com">e-mail</a> or chat.<br /><script charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div></p>

Update : Meebo tweeted us to report that their widgets are now working. @ libraryh3lp  The Meebo widgets are actually working fine now! — Me...

Updated admin site and webchat client rollout this weekend

<p>We <a href="http://libraryh3lp.blogspot.com/2012/02/updated-admin-site-and-webchat-client.html">recently announced that we've been working on a major revision of the admin site and a more minor update to the webchat client</a>. These updates will be rolling out to the main US server (libraryh3lp.com) this weekend, on Sunday morning. There will be some downtime but as always, we will do our best to minimize it. And we'll <a href="http://twitter.com/libraryh3lp">tweet our progress</a> so you and your staff will be able to check the status.<br /><br />In our last post, we focused on the improvements to the admin site. The new layout of the admin site significantly improves management of large admin domains with lots of users and queues. Daily workflow is streamlined by making the most common admin activities more prominent. And for those of you who love your reports, we've added snazzier interactive graphs.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: 16px;">In this post, we wanted to give you a rundown on improvements coming to the webchat client. The most visible change to the webchat client, beyond the cosmetic change from blue to grey, is integrated navigation to chat monitoring, using the Activity tab (bottom-left).</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKT_aTEqYR8ZmUGSyEH6PLr_jk__AUelSoppbUzJt43JzxSwwdY-umP6iDAooBuAFO_4DAIjJoNU6mJpnYhJLEpPUV0Dl_3LoU0Y3PxtiLOZBCLwaomDxUjuod2aw58qDjhEhBbENsf24/s1600/webchat-mar-2012.png" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717213016354422354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKT_aTEqYR8ZmUGSyEH6PLr_jk__AUelSoppbUzJt43JzxSwwdY-umP6iDAooBuAFO_4DAIjJoNU6mJpnYhJLEpPUV0Dl_3LoU0Y3PxtiLOZBCLwaomDxUjuod2aw58qDjhEhBbENsf24/s400/webchat-mar-2012.png" style="display: block; height: 251px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; width: 400px;" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Chatting looks pretty much like before. But notice the tabs across the bottom!</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6JlfrZHzP4hI05lkt10GW3ADOY6VMemxbwtKp7LjTQgLrMn4gChjD5IkL7Kn41K-0WFT2bgbuf89iiHQVra3ijAoIAFstyE6MuzCaljYeRF017M_Zx1LeCtYhrrjX7qvWDs1v_Qoj02o/s1600/webchat-activity-mar-20-2012.png" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717213125994783138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6JlfrZHzP4hI05lkt10GW3ADOY6VMemxbwtKp7LjTQgLrMn4gChjD5IkL7Kn41K-0WFT2bgbuf89iiHQVra3ijAoIAFstyE6MuzCaljYeRF017M_Zx1LeCtYhrrjX7qvWDs1v_Qoj02o/s400/webchat-activity-mar-20-2012.png" style="display: block; height: 256px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; width: 400px;" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">The Activity tab gives an overview of the day's chat activity.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Some improvements will not be immediately noticeable, like sound alert improvements. We're using a new JavaScript library to play sounds, but we still have the same actual alert sound (the sonar ping). Our goal is to make sound alerts more robust overall. One immediate benefit is that IE9 users will no longer need to use compatibility mode.<br /><br />And we have brand a new feature - Desktop Notifications! Desktop notifications provide a pop-up window alerting you to new patron chats, even if the webchat client is minimized or buried way in the background with lots of other applications on top. Now, if your sound is turned down or even muted, you'll get good visual alerting for new messages.<br /><br />If your broswer supports them, desktop notifications can be enabled using the Actions menu (top-right). They have native support in Chrome and in our testing, this feature works great in Chrome. There is also a <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/html-notifications/">desktop notifications plugin for Firefox</a>; the only caveat with the Firefox plugin is that we have not tested it extensively.<br /><br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRzTIFQlQrBE2vHnmckUxxcUK2Cgwv9-w9vwMQUTmX05aWuQsI949le44DEbn3SzuxP44oBIiULlyyD4T63zSxZJgoiuSOmbIa005786xgFUUTUMLKbRdoHMEB4I9G3WdQr6fE4wNDe5c/s1600/chrome-desktop-notification.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717216362566375474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRzTIFQlQrBE2vHnmckUxxcUK2Cgwv9-w9vwMQUTmX05aWuQsI949le44DEbn3SzuxP44oBIiULlyyD4T63zSxZJgoiuSOmbIa005786xgFUUTUMLKbRdoHMEB4I9G3WdQr6fE4wNDe5c/s400/chrome-desktop-notification.png" style="display: block; height: 371px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Desktop notifications in action in Chrome.</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br />We hope these changes will improve your workflows and service quality! Additionally, these upgrades pave the way for exciting (and frequently requested) features, such as canned messages and the ability to centrally block abusive patrons. Stay tuned over the coming months for details.<br /><div><div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></div></div></div></div></p>

We recently announced that we've been working on a major revision of the admin site and a more minor update to the webchat client . The...

Promoting Your Library through Pinterest

<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgosDsDgGBPAg8qpxz6QliOvSa5aWF_ULvfnY2bLOr92u_bUJOEEGxLRm4wKICGpuS2b0QG5W-ZX-S5j2HHKmYfNztksDIlbawGgJ5nUxw-rYx_NIiTZZLaepqGddTl34bPKaQcCwQj2gE/s1600/ferret-pins.png"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5708840696972276898" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgosDsDgGBPAg8qpxz6QliOvSa5aWF_ULvfnY2bLOr92u_bUJOEEGxLRm4wKICGpuS2b0QG5W-ZX-S5j2HHKmYfNztksDIlbawGgJ5nUxw-rYx_NIiTZZLaepqGddTl34bPKaQcCwQj2gE/s320/ferret-pins.png" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 0px;" width="284" /></a>If you are a librarian and haven't yet heard of <a href="http://pinterest.com/">Pinterest</a>, it's definitely worth a look, especially if your library is into leveraging social media to promote library services. Pinterest is a social networking site that lets users create groupings (pinboards) of images (pins) they find on the web or upload. Users can then interact with other people's pins and pinboards by "like"ing pins or by following pinboards.<br /><div><br />If you have already heard of Pinterest, it is probably because the site is making big news lately on the Interwebs. According to <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/pinterest-monthly-uniques/">comScore</a>, Pinterest was the fastest growing independent site to hit 10 million monthly unique visits in the U.S. <a href="http://blog.shareaholic.com/2012/01/pinterest-referral-traffic/">Another report</a> claims that Pinterest drives more referral traffic to online retailers than Google+, YouTube, Reddit and LinkedIn combined.<br /><br />By default, each pin is linked back to the website from whence it came. BUT, you can easily edit the pin's link and change it to wherever you'd like. <b>The ability to customize pin links unlocks all sorts of exciting possibilities for promoting your library's collections, services, and events.</b> For example, libraries could upload images of newly arrived books and then link those images directly to its catalog record. That is, when a patron clicks on the pin for a book, she could be directed to a page that makes it easy for her to hold or check out a copy. You could post items promoting an upcoming event and then post pictures from the event after it was done. And you could even pin an image of your chat widget, linked to your Ask-A-Librarian page, so that people with questions can get connected to your staff more easily.<br /><div><br /></div>Libraries are already jumping on the Pinterest band wagon. Here are just a few examples:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://pinterest.com/uofllibraries/">University of Louisville Libraries</a> currently has 5 boards, including Books, Videos, and Photographs.</li><li><a href="http://pinterest.com/westervlibrary/">Westerville Library</a> in Westerville, Ohio currently has 16 boards, including Bookish Crafts, Quotes About Reading, and Tweens/Teens Library Love.</li><li><a href="http://pinterest.com/clermontlib/">Clermont County Public Library</a> in Ohio current has 42 boards! They cover topics like staff pick books for a variety of age groups and genres, new books each month, and Going Green Books.</li></ul><div>If you are interested in looking into Pinterest for your library, Anne Clarke, who is a Children's Librarian in Michigan, recently published a really nice blog post entitled <a href="http://www.sotomorrowblog.com/2012/01/pinterest-for-librarians.html">Pinterest for Librarians</a>. <a href="http://joemurphylibraryfuture.com/pinterest-online-pinboard-with-promise-for-libraries/">Pinterest Online Curation Pinboard with Major Promise for Libraries</a>, written by Joe Murphy, is another good resource. Pinterest is currently in a beta phase. So you'll need an invite to get an account. You can request an invite via <a href="http://pinterest.com/">Pinterest's website</a> or <a href="mailto:support@libraryh3lp.com">e-mail us</a> and we can send you an invite through our Pinterest account. Yes, <a href="http://pinterest.com/libraryh3lp">LibraryH3lp is giving Pinterest a whirl</a>!<br /><br /></div><div>If you've spent any time with the widget designer in the admin site, you probably have come across the shared widget skins. As it stands, the shared skins is a long list of widgets that our libraries have created over the years. Its length is both a blessing and curse. You have lots of opportunity for inspiration, but then any enthusiasm quickly gets tempered by the sheer magnitude. Enter Pinterest. </div><div><br /></div><div>We're creating a <a href="http://pinterest.com/libraryh3lp/ask-a-librarian-chat-widgets/">visual library of widgets</a> and <a href="http://pinterest.com/libraryh3lp/ask-a-librarian-images/">Ask-A-Librarian images</a> intended to inspire and to encourage creativity when integrating chat widgets into websites. Eventually, we'd like to integrate these boards into our website. We've seeded the two boards with some examples (all linked directly to the originating library's Ask-A-Librarian service), but we'd love to have many more! As a testament to Pinterest's active user population, we're already getting followers and likes on our pins. If you would like to add your chat widget and/or Ask-A-Librarian image to our boards, <a href="mailto:support@libraryh3lp.com">please let us know</a>. And if you'd prefer us not to use your images, also <a href="mailto:support@libraryh3lp.com">let us know</a> and we will remove them from our boards.</div><div><div></div></div><div></div></div></p>

If you are a librarian and haven't yet heard of Pinterest , it's definitely worth a look, especially if your library is into leverag...

Updated admin site and webchat client coming soon!

<p>Just a quick heads-up that we'll be updating the admin site and webchat client in the next couple of weeks. We'll give an exact date when we're a little closer, but we wanted to give you a quick preview of all the improvements to come.<br /><div><br /></div><div>The updated admin site's new layout significantly improves management of large admin domains with lots of users and queues. We're also rearranging the ordering of the tabs so that common activities are most prominent. For example, the default start page will be "Activity" rather than "Users, Queues, and Gateways" so you can see what is going on with your chat service as soon as you log in. This makes more sense in the scheme of daily admin activities and should streamline your workflow. We are also improving time zone support. No more off-by-an-hour daylight savings time effects, and you'll have the ability to set your local time zone. Plus, we've added snazzy interactive reports where you can modify the graphs by clicking on the legends.<br /><br />The changes to the webchat client are less user-visible, facilitating an easy transition for your staff to the updated version. Initially, the most noticeable change will be easier navigation to Monitor Activity.</div><div><br /></div><div>These upgrades pave the way for exciting (and frequently requested) features, such as canned messages and the ability to centrally block abusive patrons. These new features will not be exposed in the new versions immediately, but they will be implemented as soon as possible after the first phase of changes. Under the hood, these updates represent modernization to the JavaScript libraries and pave the way for access control lists (ACLs), which will provide more fine-grained control over user permissions. </div><div><br /></div><div>Here is a screencast that provides a quick (less than 4 minutes!) overview of the updated admin site on our sister product, My Customer Cloud. This screencast was for the first public version of the updated admin site; we're adding a few more features to this version before we roll it out to LibraryH3lp.</div><br /><object data="http://content.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/516b35eb-7fcb-4436-9e77-ade1c1644489/scplayer.swf" height="450" id="scPlayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="610"><param name="movie" value="http://content.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/516b35eb-7fcb-4436-9e77-ade1c1644489/scplayer.swf"><param name="quality" value="high"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"><param name="flashVars" value="thumb=http://content.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/516b35eb-7fcb-4436-9e77-ade1c1644489/FirstFrame.png&containerwidth=1024&containerheight=768&autohide=true&autostart=false&loop=false&showendscreen=true&showsearch=false&showstartscreen=true&tocdoc=left&xmp=sc.xmp&content=http://content.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/516b35eb-7fcb-4436-9e77-ade1c1644489/New%20Admin%20Site%20Overview.mp4&blurover=false"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="scale" value="showall"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="base" value="http://content.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/516b35eb-7fcb-4436-9e77-ade1c1644489/"><iframe type="text/html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="overflow:hidden;" src="http://www.screencast.com/users/psessoms/folders/LibraryH3lp%20Screencasts/media/516b35eb-7fcb-4436-9e77-ade1c1644489/embed" height="768" width="1024"></iframe></object><br /><div><br /></div><div>Some users may quite logically wonder if it's possible to test out the updated versions before they go live, or for us to provide the current versions and new versions simultaneously for a period of transition time. Unfortunately, the ACL support requires API changes that are incompatible with the previous interfaces, and so this simply isn't possible. However, we hope that our updated documentation and screencasts will help ease any growing pains.</div><div><br /></div><div>We'll be sure to post an update once we're closer to releasing the changes.</div></p>

Just a quick heads-up that we'll be updating the admin site and webchat client in the next couple of weeks. We'll give an exact date...

Birthday wish granted! We haz Wordle.

<p>A big <b>THANK YOU</b> to everyone who granted <a href="http://libraryh3lp.blogspot.com/2012/01/guess-what-were-four-years-old-today.html">our birthday wish</a>! The Wordle of LibraryH3lp customers is now in place on the <a href="http://libraryh3lp.com/">LibraryH3lp home page</a>. <div><br /></div><div>We gave greater font sizes to those customers who have been with LibraryH3p the longest because we sincerely appreciate the courage of our early adopters. And, without further ado, our Wordle:<div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://libraryh3lp.com/images/keep-it-simple/libraryh3lp-wordle.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="361" src="http://libraryh3lp.com/images/keep-it-simple/libraryh3lp-wordle.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>Please let us know of any typos. And if you would like to add your library to our Wordle, <a href="mailto:support@libraryh3lp.com">just let us know</a>. We have plenty of room. :-)</div></div></p>

A big THANK YOU to everyone who granted our birthday wish ! The Wordle of LibraryH3lp customers is now in place on the LibraryH3lp home pag...

New commands for patrons texting your Twilio SMS gateway

<p>We've added two texting commands that give your patrons control over text messages sent from your Twilio number. <br /><br />When a patron texts "stop", "quit", or "end" to your Twilio number, she will no longer receive any incoming text messages from your librarians. As confirmation, she will receive a notice that the stop command was successful. These words will have no effect if they are simply part of a larger text message. That is, "When will this rain stop?" will go through just fine. <br /><br />To counteract a previously issued "stop" command, a patron can text "start" to your Twilio number. She will again be able to receive incoming text messages from your librarians. As confirmation, she will receive a notice that the start command was successful.<br /><div><br /><div>These commands are in keeping with <a href="http://mmaglobal.com/bestpractices.pdf">best practice guidelines from the MMA</a>.<br /><br />P.S. Thanks to everyone for the <a href="http://libraryh3lp.blogspot.com/2012/01/guess-what-were-four-years-old-today.html">birthday wishes last Friday</a>! It really made our week! And, if your library wants to be featured in our Wordle, there's still plenty of time to be included.</div></div></p>

We've added two texting commands that give your patrons control over text messages sent from your Twilio number. When a patron texts ...