Kang Bro Wiratma

Home > All posts

New feature for patrons! Searchable FAQ

[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.] 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. 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. <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! <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> <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 <a href="http://ask.libraryh3lp.com/" target="_blank">primary page</a> contains all of your questions. Yup. Keep scrolling. They're all there. Or you can look at all questions tagged with a particular <a href="http://ask.libraryh3lp.com/topics/168" target="_blank">topic</a>. 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 <a href="http://ask.libraryh3lp.com/questions/429" target="_blank">individual question pages</a>. 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. 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. <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. The Questions 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. The Pages 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. 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> <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. 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.

[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

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. 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. 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.

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.

Coming to LibraryH3lp from another chat system, you may feel that your administrative user interface has suddenly transformed from: <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> To something more like: <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> 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 patrons with the simplicity of "Push for Cheese".  Here is a walkthrough of the core concepts. Fundamentally, of course, is the widget - 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 user: 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. 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. 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. To facilitate this, LibraryH3lp breaks the concept of a widget into two pieces: a widget and a queue.  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. 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 service.  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. With all the knobs comes flexibility. Instead of just a user and a widget, we give you any number of users to answer chats, queues to organize your users, widgets to display in your web pages, and services to ensure that your patrons get the best help possible. 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.

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)

With LibraryH3lp's new Services Designer, it's even easier to create code snippets for embedding chat widgets into your website! Why snippets? With a single snippet, you can: <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> <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. 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> <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 quickly get a tutorial for the new Services Design up and running. [Blog post edited Oct 13, 2014, since the iorad-backed tutorial content is no longer available via iorad's site.  PS] </div>

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

(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski.27s_law_of_software_envelopment">See</a>.) 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. First up, a quick note that these new features are on top of our existing email integration, Tag for Followup.  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">Tag for Followup has been improved</a> since this post was published.]  If the operator wants to target a specific email address, that's what email transcript is for. 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 opted out 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. 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. 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. 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..." Because this is email, a few words about spam are in order.  Yes, patrons sometimes send email to queues.  Spammers frequently 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.) 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. Anyway, there you have it: LibraryH3lp, now with 100% more email.

( 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

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 software flexibility. That is, how you chat with patrons. <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. 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. Staff from your browser. 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. 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. Staff from your desktop or laptop. 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. 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. Staff from your mobile device. 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. 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. 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. A chat platform.  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. The XMPP standard is powerful.  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. But that's not the end of the story.  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. 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. 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>.

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

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 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>. 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. <h3> Unlimited concurrent operators</h3><div> </div>All of our subscriptions come with unlimited 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>. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. <h3> Chat is just another communication tool</h3><div> </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. 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. 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. 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. <h3> More posts to come</h3><div> </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.

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...