QuestionPoint widgets and what to do about them
QuestionPoint recently released a widget that will let your patrons connect to L-net instead of coming to this site to chat with us.
This a is a huge step and is a great response to the IM industry, which has been providing this kind of tool for a few years now.
Using a widget from IM web aggregator Meebo, Oregon State University reported over 500 questions per month a year ago, which is many, many more than they were getting with a link to L-net. I don't think it's "IM" that makes the difference here, but the fact that the widget sends a very clear message to patrons that someone is available to chat with them.
One feature I like is that the QuestionPoint widget lets patrons have the transcript e-mailed to them, and they can choose whether or not the QP system records that e-mail address. This is the kind of privacy choice that libraries should be giving patrons all the time.
Most of the rest of this post is dedicated to what I don't like about it, and then below, what I think we can do about it.
What I don't like, simply, is that the QuestionPoint widget has not been designed for collaboration.
I've noted in the past that the QuestionPoint service is set up to allow several libraries to share a service point, and to pass questions between libraries, but it is not designed to allow a group of libraries provide a common, collaborative service, which we aim to do.
For example, we'd rather all be able to view each other's questions, but QuestionPoint won't allow this and we instead maintain a separate database. Or, if I want to run a report of patrons' responses to our exit survey, each institution has a separate survey, so I have to set up 37 identical surveys, and then when I want the data, I have to run 37 separate reports.
In the case of the QuestionPoint widget, each one contains a code for the library that created it, and each library is associated with a "primary queue". We have three queues, "Public", "Academic" and "K-12". Librarians from Oregon cover all three, but only one is primary for each library, depending on what kind of library it is.
In our regular chat service, any Oregon patron might get picked up by any Oregon librarian, if one is online. The widget prevents this type of collaboration - it only allows patrons to chat if librarians are online who share the same primary queue as the widget.
For example, a Salem Public Library widget will be active if librarians from Salem, McMinnville, Eugene, or any other Oregon public library are online. If the only librarians online are from Portland Community College, Southern Oregon University, or another Oregon academic library, the widget will display that chat is unavailable, even if that academic librarian would be able to pick up a public library patron using the regular chat interface.
This isn't a software problem so much as a policy problem. OCLC has made the assumption that our virtual reference services will be very very popular if we implement this kind of interface and the 24/7 Cooperative and the paid OCLC Backup Staff won't be able to handle it. As a result, the widget functions in the way I described above.
Talk about fear of success! I've sent several complaints and suggestions for other strategies to measure and manage this potential problem, but have yet to get a response or acknowledgment from OCLC.
What's worse, if the widget is really that successful, our hands are tied to do anything about it. We can add more staff, but only from the same kind of library that the widget is successful for. As a small cooperative with about half public, half academic and half law and school libraries, our ability to collaborate on a virtual reference service point is severely diminished if we use this tool.
Without providing 24/7 service through this interface, the only thing QuestionPoint's widget offers that other widgets do not is that e-mail address privacy choice. Two other features of the QP widget - routing to multiple librarians (potentially, if you have the staff) and an "accessible" javascript interface, are also provided by Libraryh3lp, am emerging product/service being developed at/around the University of North Carolina.
The main practical problem with us using the widget is that saying that chat is unavailable isn't truthful - we're available 24/7, it's the widget that is not.
To get around this, I wrote a little JavaScript function to hide the widget certain hours of the day. It is similar to the one I wrote a while back that hides a MeeboMe widget if a library is not on AIM, only this is much simpler because it relies on the patron's computer clock to decide whether or not to display the widget. If only 24/7 service is available and not an Oregon librarian, a link to our chat service displays instead.
A working example is at www.oregonlibraries.net/widget.
To implement something this on your library's web page:
1. Add a link to our JavaScript function in your web page's in the <head> section. Copy and paste the line below and add it anywhere between <head> and </head>.
<script type="text/JavaScript" src="http://www.oregonlibraries.net/javascript/goWidgetGo.js"></script>
2. Make sure the function runs. The best place to do this is in your <body> tag.
<body onload="javascript:goWidgetGo()">
If you're already calling some other javascript here, you can use a helper function to make lots of JavaScript happen when your page loads.
3. Where you want the widget to go, copy and paste the code below. The widget is 275 pixels wide.
<div id="QPwrapper" style="display: none;"> <div id="qpchatwidget" theme="blue" qpwsize="standard"></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.questionpoint.org/crs/servlet/org.oclc.chat.QPWClientJS?instid=11741&langcode=1"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.questionpoint.org/crs/html/chat/qputil.js"> </script> <noscript> Please enable JavaScript to chat live in this window, or click the link below to chat live with a librarian in another window. </noscript> </div> <div id="247wrapper"> <a href="http://www.oregonlibraries.net/chat">Chat live</a> with an Oregon librarian, 24/7. Ask any question, and reference librarians will help find the answer. </div>
This code works by changing the style of a <div> (with the ids, "QPwrapper" and "247wrapper") to be hidden, or to display, depending on what time of day it is. The QuestionPoint widget is hidden by default, and a regular link to L-net displays. If it's between 10am and 6pm, Monday-Friday, the widget displays instead.
The widget in this example links to our public library queue, which is the only one I am fairly certain we have coverage for most of the time, though there will be times it displays as "unavailable".
Of course, if you want, you can make your own QuestionPoint widget for your library and ignore all my code by following the instructions in the release notes posted by QuestionPoint a few weeks ago.