Beyond 160 Characters in the Library – Text Messaging Reference Doesn't Need to Be Limiting

There seem to be varying stories about the history of SMS (Text Messaging) and why Friedhelm Hillebrand, the creator of SMS, decided on 160 as THE number. Some say it’s the amount of characters on a typical postcard, many other stories not that he just determined it while sitting at his type-writer in Germany, noting […]

Mobilized: Text a Librarian on the iPhone / iPod Touch

We recently tested out Text a Librarian on the iPhone 3GS and had great success. Love your iPhone or iPod Touch? So do we. Mosio’s Text a Librarian works perfectly on both. iPhone Screen Shot: Mobile reference for librarians who enjoy being mobile. We don’t recommend using a mobile phone as your sole text messaging […]

Mosio's Text a Librarian Thanks J.B. Hill – The Pioneer of Text Message Reference in the Library

Was reading through some old posts about the subject recently and wanted to take a moment to recognize and thank J.B. Hill from Southeastern Louisiana University, for being the pioneer of text message reference in libraries. The Librarian in Black recognized him in a post back in November of 2005 and we just want to […]

Reference Librarians: SMS / Text Messaging Skills Are Not Needed, Your Research and People Skills Are

Reference Librarians: SMS Skills Are Not Needed, Your Research Skills Are As excited as I am to see that more and more libraries are seeing the value of offering text message reference service to patrons, I find it troublesome to read posts and articles claiming that “librarians need SMS skills now.” It’s unnecessary pressure being […]

Library Software and Reference Technologies: Software as a Service (SaaS) Value

While reading a great article by Marshall Breeding about library automation and the state of the economy, I was very pleased to see Software as a Service (SaaS) listed as a lower cost strategy: “[a SaaS] arrangement involves a fixed, annual subscription fee, but it saves the library the costs of purchasing software licenses, server […]