A Year of Mobile Reference Simplified

The past year has been an incredible one for Text a Librarian and all of us at Mosio are excited for what’s on the horizon for the year ahead.

What a year it’s been?!

When we launched Text a Librarian at ALA Midwinter in Denver last January, we set out to provide libraries with a new, socially-relevant communication tool to reach more patrons, keep the user interface clean and easy-to-use and encourage ongoing feedback to make Text a Librarian the most useful mobile reference technology in the industry.

We continue to challenge ourselves each day to meet and exceed these goals by designing new features and functionalities (like RefStart) to increase efficiencies and improve user/patron experiences, and by showing how Text a Librarian can be used beyond questions and answers to add value to the service by presenting opportunities to utilize text messaging as a way to gather feedback, collect data, market libraries and engage patrons on a mobile technology that most of them own.

What we never expected?

Mosio was built on the notion of “helpful people helping people” via mobile questions and answers. We felt that Text a Librarian would be a welcomed service in the library industry. What we never expected was that the library community is one that encourages the open-flow sharing of information, ideas and technology that serve for the betterment of the whole. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense.

It is refreshing and inspiring to be a part of this community. It motivates us to listen, learn and want to contribute more.

What’s next? More Mobile Technologies for Libraries

It is now very clear that mobile accessibility and services are must-have components of every library to accommodate on-the-go patrons with on-the-go technologies. Text messaging use continues to explode at a massive rate, and the mobile web is also sharply on the rise. These two mobile technologies individually provide efficient access to information and resources, and when offered in combination, ensure that every patron with a mobile phone has mobile access to your library.

We are dedicated to help you reach your mobile goals in 2010 and beyond by extending all of Mosio’s mobile solutions and services to libraries.

• Mobile websites
• Mobile systems integrations
• Mobile marketing (text message announcements, notifications, alerts, newsletters)
• Mobile web development

If your library is considering ways to mobilize beyond text message reference services let us know how we can make your mobile goals a reality.

Thank YOU!

We want to send a big THANK YOU to everyone who continues to support Text a Librarian in various ways. We greatly appreciate your ideas, suggestions and feedback.

All of our best in the year ahead!

Sincerely,

The Text a Librarian Team

Questions, comments, feedback? Text us!
Text asktal + your message to 66746.

It’s official, RefStart is now LIVE!

When Text a Librarian launched at ALA Midwinter in January earlier this year, we began hearing of the difficulties of managing all of the various virtual reference utilities, social networks, search engines and reference sites available. “I wish I could have everything in one place” became a current theme. We immediately started research and development for what would become RefStart.

When describing RefStart, we tell people to think of it as two separate, but cohesive, parts: Personal Start Pages & The Toolbar.

The Start Page

Recently, we wrote a blog post about start pages tipping our hats to those individuals who pioneered the idea of using start pages like iGoogle, Pageflakes, etc. as external library resources for patrons and to help increase workflow efficiencies internally. It made perfect sense to develop RefStart with the functionality to include your own personal start page, to build one or to use one of our templates. Please click here to read more about start pages.
Update: Netvibes started “frame busting” so we no longer recommend them as a useful option for RefStart.

[iGoogle is one example of a personal start page]

The Toolbar

The RefStart Toolbar provides customizable quick links, IM reference logins, 7 single-click search engines and full integration with Text a Librarian. No matter how often you change your start page, you will always “take the toolbar with you.”

Quick Links: These are 4 customizable quick links to bookmark your favorite sites for quick, easy access. You can edit/change these as often as you like.

Search: RefStart is linked with 7 search engines: Google, Bing, Librarian’s Internet Index, WorldCat, Library of Congress, Wolfram|Alpha and Twitter. Simply type your search term(s) into the box and click on the logo of the search engine you want to use to perform the search.

Chat Launch: Using the chat launch drop-down menu, select a chat program to open up in a new tab. Login to your account and begin chatting.

Text a Librarian Notification: A flashing red box lets you know that a new question has posted to your Text a Librarian microboard. Simply click on the link inside the red box or click the Text a Librarian logo on the left side of the RefStart Toolbar to be taken to the microboard.

The Result

Combine those two elements and you have RefStart: A dynamic, web-based mobile reference utility to help increase reference productivity…and to make your life easier.

RefStart Pageflakes Template

RefStart is a free, standard feature of Text a Librarian. If you would like to see RefStart in more detail, sign up for a live demo. Questions, comments or feedback? Email refstart@textalibrarian.com.

Thanks for reading!

Text a Libarian is about to launch a new service we call RefStart. It’s a web application combining virtual reference with social media and search, giving librarians one-click access to the web 2.0 tools they like best. I say “like best” because the fully flexible system lets them choose, so if they use Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Flickr and Google, for example, the system let’s users quickly link to those pages while notifying them on the page when a new text message reference comes in through our system. The initial reaction we’ve received about the feature has been very positive, but I’m curious to see which librarians will see it and say “well this is great, but we can’t use Facebook or Twitter.” It won’t matter either way because they can simply choose elements of their page that don’t access those (or other) banned sites, but it’ll be interesting to see how many come forth with that info.

My favorite thing about working at Mosio / Text a Librarian is that the day-to-day energy of this place is in the creating solutions, solving pain points, making reference librarian’s day-to-day tasks easier. This isn’t lip service, everyone here loves what they do. We ask, we watch, we listen to librarians in trying to find out what will make not only the best text messaging reference software in the industry, but how we make it the best virtual reference software on the planet. This way of thinking fosters innovation, it’s what made the development team come up with an optional, pleasant audible noise when a new question came in because a library customer wasn’t allowed to use IM. The task was fun: “What does an incoming question sound like?” We found a great one, then got a request from the same library that the sound was SO pleasant that it blended in with the ambient noise of the library. Their request? “Just below the level of foghorn. How about some Led Zeppelin? LOL” Awesome.

I’ll loop back and re-post about how the experience goes, but whether or not those we talk to are able to access Facebook, Twitter and the like, RefStart will be there and work well. After reading Robin’s report, armed with the tools librarians need to gain access and open up outreach to the new web 2.0 technologies being used by thousands of other libraries, they’ll be able to update with no problems.

Mosio's Text a Librarian - Mobile reference simplified. RefStart Image.