As we gear up for another ALA Annual the company has had some interesting discussions on new announcements and our directions in the world of library software.

A couple of weeks ago I had a great meeting/conversation with one of our partners and the discussion of library customer service came up. At the end of our partner meeting, someone said “we can give patrons access to all of the data in the world, but if we aren’t there for them from a customer service standpoint, it won’t matter.” Very true. Andy Woodworth’s blog post “Why Closing More Public Libraries Might Be the Best Thing (…Right Now)” [link below] came up in an internal company meeting, specifically his two points about customer service and advocacy (from the comments it seems the post got a lot of people talking).

The idea of improved customer service, whether at libraries or businesses in general, will continue to be a significant function of an organization’s success in the information age. Aaron Tay’s recent blog post about regularly scanning Twitter and the web for feedback is great (he gives some tips on how to do so) [link below], obviously taking a page from what many companies are doing as part of their customer service: listening to social media mentions for good and bad comments. Neither are the first to talk about the ongoing need for pro-active/reactive customer service in libraries, but both are current and relevant.

So what does this mean for Mosio and Text a Librarian?

We’re still very new to libraries and we LOVE working with them. Frankly, we’re just getting started. While we have friends who are librarians and have a handful of amazing people advising us, we’re not librarians ourselves, nor have we ever pretended to be. In many ways we see this as a distinct advantage to building our product: we cast aside any preconceived ideas of how things should be done and focus instead on simplicity, usability and feedback from our customers. We also know the inner workings of mobile technologies, enabling us to offer reliable (and certified) mobile services to libraries. We recently made an announcement that Mosio’s Text a Librarian is being used by over 500 academic and public libraries. It’s something we’re very proud to have accomplished in such a short amount of time, but we could not have done it without listening to the people who matter most to our success, the librarians who use our software with the benefit of communicating with more patrons on-the-go. The combination of our expertise and passion about creating an amazing library service will continue to be the keys to our ongoing success.

Text Messaging: It’s Not Just for Reference Anymore

In the same announcement we also mentioned that Mosio is now offering our full list of mobile services to libraries. Text messaging can be used for so many things beyond virtual reference and we’re set up to offer additional services to the benefit of our customers. We’re thrilled to be able to continue working with new and existing customers in offering technology solutions that will help us fulfill our vision for our library software: Patron Relationship Management.

Patron Relationship Management

We truly believe this is going to be one of the key tools libraries will need in the future to maintain great patron relationships and relevance in the community. Two comments we hear often are “I wish we could answer all patron questions this way” and “I wish everything could be in one place.” One of those comments we take as a compliment, the other we are taking seriously as a wish list item. Our goal for Text a Librarian was always to start simply, create web-based software that’s easy to use, reliable and certified by the mobile carriers, then grow additional features, elements and uses to continue giving more patrons access to libraries on their mobile phones. You can expect to see more from us in the mobile technology space, but every new product or service we add will have patron communications and relationship management in mind.

Links

Andy Woodworth: Why Closing More Public Libraries Might Be the Best Thing (…Right Now)
Aaron Tay: Why libraries should proactively scan Twitter & the web for feedback – some examples
LISWire: Mosio’s Text a Librarian in Over 500 Libraries, Announces Add-On Mobile Services

From the Steve Krug’s new book, Rocket Surgery Made Easy

We’ve added a simple, but very effective feature we call “Text for Instructions.”

Simply stated, it means your patrons only have to text your keyword to 66746 for instructions on how to use your service.

What happens next?
1. Your patrons get an auto-responder with instructions on saving your keyword and the number 66746 to their contacts for when they need to ask you a question. The instructions include a link to a mobile web page with detailed instructions in case they need them.

It acts like a registration system that gets them started with your service without having to have a pressing question or message on-the-spot. They save your info in their phones for later when they do.

2. The Mosio system assigns the phone number a PatronID associated with your account, so after that all they need to do is text their question to 66746.

That’s it!

Note: The old way of texting your keyword + their message to 66746 still works, no problem. But this way patrons can see your poster (example below) or promotional materials, text for instructions, then save everything in their contacts when they need it later.

If you’re a Mosio / Text a Librarian customer and want more specific information about it, like how you can customize/edit the instructions, it’s listed in the New Features section inside your account.

The answer is simple: it violates Google’s Terms of Service.

Google Violation, Part 1: Screen Scraping and Polling
Google Voice does not offer any sort of API (permitted) way of letting you piggy back your technology onto Google Voice, to receive text messages via your Google Voice number and then use them in other software. What that means is that anyone using Google Voice to piggy back on their text messaging function is doing so by automatically logging into the system, which is known as “screen scraping” or “polling.” Doing this is a direct violation of Google’s Terms of Service:
“5.3 You agree not to access (or attempt to access) any of the Services by any means other than through the interface that is provided by Google, unless you have been specifically allowed to do so in a separate agreement with Google. You specifically agree not to access (or attempt to access) any of the Services through any automated means (including use of scripts or web crawlers) and shall ensure that you comply with the instructions set out in any robots.txt file present on the Services.”

Google Violation, Part 2: Reselling Google’s Services
Google as a company is a wonderful contributor to the open source movement and offer APIs to many of their products. Google Voice, however, is not one of them. Currently there is no Google Voice API and depending on who you ask, the response is either hopeful or “there’s no way that will happen.” Regardless of which side you stand on, any organization or individual selling software that includes Google Voice hacks is again doing so in violation of Google’s terms of service:
“5.5 Unless you have been specifically permitted to do so in a separate agreement with Google, you agree that you will not reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade or resell the Services for any purpose.”

It’s Unreliable
When Google releases APIs to their software and services, they are providing reliable access under an agreed upon set of circumstances (some involve commercial vs non-commercial rights, etc) and make product change decisions with APIs in mind. Simply put, when they make changes, they do so either without affecting the API or by giving those with API access appropriate information so adjustments can be made, ensuring the services will still work well. With no API, there’s no warning, no information on why code changes. If you’re accessing Google without an API and things begin not working, there is no recourse in getting things up and running again.

We hope this clears up any questions people have regarding Google Voice and why we don’t use it as an SMS gateway. We think Google Voice is pretty cool, but it’s not a legal, reliable way to offer text messaging software to libraries, companies or organizations, so we opt instead for legal, approved ways of giving our customers access to text messaging. As far as Google being a company the supports openness, we applaud them for being so, but also recognize that Google is open when it’s convenient for them. While it may not be “go to jail” illegal, it’s simply not a risk worth taking.

If you have any questions for us, please feel free to contact us.

The Mosio Team

Then and Now…

Faberge Shampoo started it all with their famous commercial from the 1970s. Peggy Barber and Linda Wallace nail it in their new article, “The Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing” in the November issue of American Libraries Magazine. We wrote a post called “Word of Mouth: The Best Form of Social Media” as part of our Library Marketing Tips series.

I definitely recommend reading the whole article, but here are short versions of their “Why WOMM?” bullets to get you started:
1. It’s real and immediate.
2. It’s personal.
3. It’s honest.
4. It’s catching.
5. It’s customer-driven.

More Info and Articles

1. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association has a great educational section, WOMMA 101, giving some great initial information as well as their Best Practices Handbook (free in PDF).

2. A great blog post from Marketing Vox containing some stats (and charts and graphs), Real-Life WOM Beats Online by a Wide Margin.

3. About.com article Why Word-of-Mouth Marketing? by Laura Lake.

Shhhhh…don’t tell anybody.

“Here is the prime condition of success: Concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. Having begun on one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it, adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most about it.”
- Andrew Carnegie

My favorite thing about working at Mosio is that every day we get to come into work and improve ourselves, our product and our relationships with customers. Aside from the positive attitude and action from those who work here, our business model, offering on-demand mobile reference software as a service for libraries, enables us to create, test, launch, listen and then improve upon our product in an ongoing fashion. Text a Librarian is better today than it was yesterday and it will always be better tomorrow.

What Does it Mean? Ongoing Improvements and Progress as Promised.

Since we launched in beta almost a year ago, we have added literally dozens of features and improvements to the service, all of it based on feedback from our customers and those who have commented or offered ideas for improvements. All have been taken into consideration in our ongoing development of the service. We welcome constructive criticism and feedback and in fact, we live for it. Ideas and feedback from librarians enable us to make at least 2 major feature updates per month plus a handful of user interface, usability and back end improvements to the system.

Ultimately what this means is that if you read or send a comment about our product, chances are we have too and are looking into it. Truthfully, not all ideas and suggestions are feasible: for example, we have heard “why can’t the page auto-refresh when a new question comes in?” In theory this suggestion sounds great, until you are in the middle of answering a question and the page refreshes, quickly making your answer box a moving target. Other improvements, such as RefStart, have been made based on listening to the wishes of librarians and coming up with our own solution.

Why We Do It

The simplest answer is “because we can.” Compared with any other options libraries have for mobile reference solutions, we strive for ours to be the best. Being the best means always improving, always making the system more secure, scalable, more collaboration-friendly, easier to set up, easier to use and more robust with reporting. What it means for you and your library is that by signing up for our service, you’ll always have a product that gets better and better, built by people who love hearing what you think as you use it. The biggest compliment we hear is “I wish we could answer all reference questions this way.” Our standard response: “We’re working on it.” =]

One that you can always bet on with Mosio/Text a Librarian is that in pursuit of our goal to be the best, we’ll always be looking to out-perform and out-service any other mobile reference solutions available to libraries. We’ll always be doing this through listening, taking great notes and offering a little bit of personality with our customer service. What this means for libraries is that in their pursuit of being the best, once they sign on with our technology, they get the benefit of ongoing updates and feature-adds to make their services more robust and user-friendly without having to buy or license additional services/software.

You can see a standard list of Text a Librarian features on our website, or if you are a current Text a Librarian customer, click on the New Features link inside your Quick Links module when you’re logged into the system.

We realize that start pages have been talked about in the library community for several years. Michael Stephens wrote a great piece on start pages about 18 months ago (originally written in Computers in Libraries in April of 2007) and Dr. Joyce Valenza recently wrote a piece called “netvibes enhanced!” on the School Library Journal in May of 2009. These posts are very helpful in showing how start pages like Netvibes, PageFlakes and iGoogle can all be utilized as “library info-portals” which is absolutely true. What we’re finding interesting (and Michael Stephens mentions it in his piece) is how these start pages can be used as a time-saving, virtual reference efficiency tool.

The Unquiet Librarian wrote a quick blog post called “netvibes recognizes itself as a virtual library/reference pathfinder” and there was a lot of excitement around the office when we saw her post. We actively read and discuss posts and “how to” pieces by Aaron Tay on his blog “Musings About Librarianship.” We’re fans, love how he shows as much (if not more) than he tells how to get crafty with technologies and try to follow the same educational elements in our blog as he does in his.

A Quick Note About RefStart

It’s no secret that we’re about to launch a beta version of RefStart, a project we’ve been working on since April, which is a standard feature within Text a Librarian giving librarians one-click access to reference tools, search, web 2.0 sites and popular social networks. We announced and actively showcased it at ALA Annual in Chicago last month and got an amazing response, there are two main reasons we think this is the case:
1. Budget cuts and layoffs are making everyone need to be more efficient.
2. There are new web 2.0 and social media services popping up all the time.

Why Start Pages?

The reason we love start pages and think they’re great reference tools is because they are versatile, customizable, can be accessed from anywhere and if a new social media or web 2.0 service pops up and your library is part of it, chances are you can add a widget, gadget or module to have quick access to it. Also, they can be made private (the 3 services we’re listing below default to private), giving you the ability to have your personal information there or share it with colleagues behind a user id/password. Need more info on how start pages can be used to be more productive? Check out the SlideShare presentation iGoogle for Productivity and Outreach by PF Anderson, April 2009 at the bottom of this post. It has some great screen shot examples and info on how iGoogle can be used to be more productive.

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3 Start Pages You Can Use

Rather than do a point by point break down of each (here’s a break down of them from PC Magazine if you’re interested in that), I’ve simply pasted a screen shot with a quick description of each. Ultimately, it comes down to personal choice on what you want. In the efforts of guidance, I will say that a large number of people at Mosio/Text a Librarian use iGoogle, but we created reference start page templates in Netvibes and Pageflakes (some might say they are reference tool overkill, but it was sort of the point) as part of RefStart. The templates are public, so anyone can use or copy them. The screen shots for them are below as well as a link to them.

RefStart Template Use #1
If you really like our templates and want to use the reference resources inside as is, by all means please feel free to do so. They are for public use. You can bookmark your favorite template and use it without registering on Nitevibes or Pageflakes or having to create your own page.  The limitation of this use is that you cannot move/add widgets or personalize it in any way (i.e. you can’t add/manage your social networks via one of our templates).

RefStart Template Use #2
If you like a lot of our widgets and resources, but you want to be able to add new widgets and personalize everything, we recommend signing up for the service of your choice. Once you have your own start page, you can go back to our templates and simply copy the modules/widgets from the template on to your page. This is really the best use as you are able to manage your own page.
Note: iGoogle does not allow public access of personal start pages (except for a few celebrities as of late).

1. iGoogle

iGoogle has thousands of “gadgets” that can be easily added and shared. The iGoogle page shown below features Delicious, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Gmail, Bookmarks and YouTube Gadgets. Click on the iGoogle title above to browse features and/or sign up.

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2. Pageflakes

Pageflakes is very easy to work with. The Pageflakes RefStart Template below features Facebook, Twitter, a handful of virtual reference search bookmarks/links, Google, Rollyo Search and a CNN RSS feed. The best thing about these start pages is the ability to copy pages or modules that you like. You can copy individual modules from our template or the whole page after you sign up to create your own Pageflakes page. Clicking on the image below will take you to the RefStart Pageflakes Template.

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3. Netvibes

Update (11/12/09): Netvibes started “frame busting” so we can longer recommend them as a useful addition to RefStart. If you’re a die-hard Netvibes fan, we don’t blame you, it’s a cool service, but we recommend using either iGoogle or Pageflakes with RefStart for a better experience.
The Netvibes RefStart template below features Facebook, Twitter, a handful of virtual reference bookmarks/links, Myspace, Delicious, Flickr, Twitter Search, Google Calendar, YouTube search and an RSS feed from ALA TechSource. Like Pageflakes, you can copy any module/widget you like, so if you create your own Netvibes page, you can then come back to our RefStart Template and copy whatever parts you like and add them to yours, all in a few clicks. Clicking on the image below will take you to the RefStart Netvibes Template.

*UPDATE*
We have been experiencing some difficulties with the bookmarking widgets in Netvibes when using IE explorer. All seems to work fine with other browsers (Firefox, Chrome, etc.). We’ll continue to work on a solution. In the meantime, try a different browser if you’d like to view &/or copy the links to the reference sites/logins on Netvibes. Thanks.

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So that’s about it, 3 start pages that can be created, copied, edited and are accessible anywhere. Start pages will continue to evolve as more developers create widgets and gadgets for them and don’t see them going away any time soon. The templates are only a part of the RefStart application soon to be released in Text a Librarian. If you are interested in signing up for a live demo of Text a Librarian to see how start pages integrate with RefStart, you may do that here.

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A new study shows 2/3 of marketers are using social media. Indeed, it is a very important element of promoting products and services, but what about getting back to the basics?

Word of mouth is, and will always be, the best form of marketing.

Qualified referrals from trusted sources play a vital role in customer decision-making. There’s nothing like a recommendation from a friend, family member or associate to help introduce and endorse new products and services. These recommendations increase consideration and participation across the board.

New services at your library are no exception. Adding text messaging to reference services  means harnessing the mobile channel to increase outreach by connecting with patrons wherever they are. This is a cool concept and a useful service. Why not reach out to those people in your circle to let them know? Maybe they will find the service helpful. Maybe they know others who will too.

Word of Mouth 101

A great introduction to Word of Mouth Marketing 101 can be found at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association website. For this post we’re going to focus on two of the five basic elements they highlight:

* Educate people about your products and services
* Provide tools that make it easier to share information

For years, the Faberge Organic Shampoo commercial has been a great example for how word of mouth marketing works. In the commercial, a woman talks about loving her shampoo and telling 2 friends, who tell 2 friends and so on – this is Word of Mouth Marketing 101 in its simplest form.

Start Internally

When we make major announcements or launches at Mosio/Text a Librarian, everyone on the team is encouraged to tell friends, family and associates. Usually, a single email is sent internally to give quick “copy/paste” info. That way, everyone has the information bullets and can pass along in their own voice. Depending on the context of the announcement, in addition to emailing, it may also be encouraged to post online (Facebook, blogs, Twitter, Delicious, Digg, etc). It is never required and always optional, but whether or not someone chooses to pass the information along, s/he has the tools to make it easy. At the very least, now everyone knows.

Email Still Works

This isn’t to simply say “send out an email to your list and the world will show up at your door.” An effective email, even sent to your personal contacts, must have a compelling subject line, easy-to-digest content and clear main points, thus making it a quick read with defined takeaways. Those elements will not only help tell your story but will allow the recipient to easily share with friends and colleagues too.

Adding “Please forward this email to anyone that you think will find it helpful.” or something similar can work really well to extend the reach beyond your address book. It’s not pushy and lets everyone know that it’s ok, and welcomed, to forward along if they choose.

Contextual Contacts

They may not currently be in your virtual Rolodex, but establishing relationships with local teachers, student union representatives, education professionals, before-and-after school program instructors, community center staff and other contextual contacts can go a long ways to spread the word about library services. The wider net you can cast, the better.

If these groups are already on your contact list, continue to keep them updated. It can be as simple as asking them if they want to sign-up for a library newsletter to get news and information that could benefit their students, members and patrons. They might also be willing to distribute or place library marketing materials at their information desks.

Encourage the Social

Of course, the importance of word of mouth marketing through the sharing utilities of social media cannot be overlooked, but must taken in context based on any number of factors that would consider a recommendation as truly qualified. That said, the more exposure a product or service has as a result of social media sharing, the greater the likelihood that individuals will take the time to investigate to determine their own level of interest.

There are a handful of ways to make it easy for people to share information…about anything. These services give you a little bit of code to copy/paste onto your website, blog, etc so readers can easily share the information via email or a handful of other social media services. We’ve listed 3 below and use Add This simply because we have for awhile. All seem to work well and Add This claims to be the biggest. If someone is excited enough, they’ll figure out a way of telling others, but you might as well make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

Here are a few to consider:
Add This
Add to Any
ShareThis

Other Ideas

* Email Signatures - These make every email a marketing tool, are simple to update and can have mass reach from lots of sources. They can also help spark conversations with contacts that you communicate with, but would not normally send an announcement email.

* Add Footers on Your Reference Answers - You can add a footer to reference emails if you’re responding to patrons via email, or manually type out a footer at the end of an IM conversation (using a ” * ” symbol helps delineate a footer message from the body of text). Text a Librarian has an SMS Footer option that lets libraries add a small message at the end of a response.  If your library offers SMS reference, you can try something like “Tell a Friend to Text Us!” in your SMS Footer.

There are certainly many other ways that companies and organizations have successfully utilized word of mouth marketing not mentioned here, and we look forward to trying some out ourselves.

Thanks for reading. See you next week!

Ps. You may see the “Share” button at the bottom of this page.  If you know anyone that might find this post helpful, please share it with them.

There are quite a few books on the topic of library marketing, and OCLC’s Geek The Library Campaign is definitely getting people talking, but this post is the first in a weekly series talking about marketing text messaging reference services in your library. We think they work well for any other services you offer, use what you like. The mobile channel isn’t going away, people in the U.S. every day are texting more than they are talking and they’re using text messaging in more ways than simply communicating with friends. Maybe you know this, have decided to implement text messaging reference at your library, it’s finally ready to go and now what? Start promoting the service!

Libraries as a Marketing Vehicle?
Less than 2 years ago, an agency in the UK considered libraries a new channel in direct marketing. Regardless of what your personal reaction to this is (let me guess: not positive?), the idea is worth mentioning: placing marketing materials inside the book will get at least one view or impression. I’m sure plenty of folks were pleased to find that the idea didn’t take off too well. I’m one to appreciate creativity even when execution might be hard to pull off, but execution is 99% of the battle in marketing and great execution requires great planning. That said, we can learn something from those whose job it is to think of new ways to grab people’s attention.

Just because you print up posters does not mean they’ll get seen and just because you create a Twitter account does not mean people will follow (or even read) your tweets. Sorry, but it’s true. (Side note: we love Twitter, use it daily and it’s ok by us that teens don’t tweet). In the end, it’s about deciding what gets you the most for your budget, time and resources. So what to do? Whenever possible, do something different from what has been done. Write a list of what is usually used to promote news, updates or services and then choose something new and unusual. If you have strict guidelines about how new services can be marketed, no problem, there’s still room for flexibility and creativity or you wouldn’t be reading this post. This isn’t about skipping all methods used in the past, some can be great, the point is to avoid the noise.

A few quick tips on what to consider when avoiding the noise:
1) Avoid the Noise.
Yeah, tough one, right? Seriously though, it’s simple enough. If you see stacks of postcards on a table, placing more postcards there isn’t going to help. One of my favorite stories is about Arizona Iced Tea during their initial roll out to grocery stores: they were looking at slotting/shelving fees and noticed that it would be cheaper to be near the fruits and vegetables than on the drinks aisle. Pay more and be one of many drinks in an aisle (noise) or pay less and be near healthy fruits and vegetables? Seems like a no brainer.

2) Choose more than one method, include one you absolutely know will work.
Prior to being in the mobile industry, I worked in internet advertising and guerrilla marketing, both when they were considered very new. I saw over 400 campaigns take place and always noticed one thing: the brands utilizing more than one method or medium to promote their product or service had higher levels of success. By using several methods, you have a better chance at increasing your reach. If someone sees you in both (or even more) places, you are increasing your frequency. Both are good things. We’ll be covering some methods and ideas we’ve seeing working by some of the libraries having success in future posts, but one of the things they have in common is using more than one method to get the word out. Another interesting element is that the librarians where SMS reference services are successful are seeing the value of the service and are excited to be able to offer it.

3) Make sure you are using the proper terminology in your instructions.
This one is very important and while it should go without saying, we’re saying it anyway. Make it easy to understand and it will get used. Patrons are texting to the service, not “calling” it. Links to templates you are free to use are below and have some simple, but useful terminology. It’s also important to note that “Standard Message Rates Apply” somewhere on your materials.

4) A great call to action is the only way you’ll grab attention and hold it.
You can come up with a great call to action phrase without sounding like an infomercial. Your call to action can be in the form of asking a question, followed by a request:
“Need Info? Have a mobile phone? Text a librarian!”
“Want info on the go? Text us!”
A great call to action goes a long ways.

5) Use mobile phone icons or graphics in your materials.
When you show a mobile phone image, you increase your chances of getting noticed by those interested in using their mobile devices for communication. Make it as big as possible on your materials to get people to notice.

Ultimately, you have to decide what will work best in your library, which area will get the most attention in the spot with the least amount of noise. Personally, I’m a fan of the business card-sized flyers because they are small, can be tucked into a book, put in a wallet or purse and used later. Other people prefer posters, table tents or bookmarks. If you find any of those interesting, keep reading, we’ve created some templates to hopefully make it easier for you.

(Promotional Perfection from East Baton Rouge Public Library)

Library Marketing Microsoft Word Templates
If you’re looking for a place to get started, here are some Microsoft Word templates we’ve created for you. In the efforts of leaving them open to promoting the service in your own voice, we made them somewhat content-neutral (we recognize the call to action could be a lot more exciting). You may download and customize them as you see fit for your library.



Click on any of the links below to open the templates on your computer:
* Library Marketing Materials – Business Card/Flyers Template
* Library Marketing Materials – Table Tent Template
* Library Marketing Materials – Bookmarks Template
* Library Marketing Materials – Poster Template

Please note: The little phone logo on the templates is what we use for Mosio’s Text a Librarian. It was developed with the help of Kelly Barrick from Yale University Libraries (thanks Kelly!) and we feel it does a great job of visually explaining what mobile reference is all about. You are more than welcome to use it on these templates we’ve provided, but if you are not interested, here’s a list of creative commons flickr “mobile phone” photos. Either way, it really makes no difference to us, the goal here is to offer free templates, not sneak a logo in front of anyone.

Patrons at your library who use text messaging are going to think that being able to text you is interesting. It’s new, it’s different and many are using text messaging for more than just communicating with friends. Get their attention, give them a compelling reason and they’ll give it a try. Good luck and see you next week!

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 that most sentences do not require more than 160 letters. In many blog posts and mentions about using text messaging reference in the library, we see it noted that phones are limited to 160 characters. While this statement is mostly true, some phones and carriers let users extend their messages, this limitation only hinders your ability to respond to patron questions based on what method you are using to respond to them.

Without getting into the various ways you can respond to a patron inquiry to extend your response beyond 160 characters, suffice it to say each system has its own unique solution, most requiring more manual work on your part. Instead, let me explain how Text a Librarian solves that problem and makes it significantly easier for librarians: character counters and multi-message splitting.

Mosio's Text a Librarian enables you to send text message responses beyond 160 characters.

Character Counts and Multi-Message Splitting
Text a Librarian has a real-time character counter and message view so you can see exactly what the patron’s text message is going to look like as you type it out in the answer box. If you type beyond 160 characters, the system shows you what the second message will look like and will send it as such, extending the space you have to send a thoughtful and well-formed response. It seems relatively simple and it was built to be that way, but it is a necessary functionality to make it easier for librarians to respond while offering patrons the most helpful and content-rich answer they can get on their mobile device.

Which is More Important: The Patron Experience or Librarian Experience?
Our answer? Both. In speaking with anyone on the Mosio team, you’ll often hear the phrase “patron experience” or “librarian experience” when it comes to our system and interaction design. Simply stated, we don’t see a reason to offer a reference service if it’s going to be difficult for patrons or librarians to use, no one is going to get excited about it. In fact, a handful of people ask “why don’t you have the page auto-refresh when a new question comes in?” It’s a valid question and we initially integrated it. Then we tried answering a question when another question came in. The page becomes a moving target and the assumed convenience of having a new question magically appear on the page becomes frustration at the inability to answer the question you’re working on.

The product team is working on a few additional features that will take mobile reference even further, providing a richer experience to both patrons and librarians, enabling both to get excited about its simplicity and ease of use. For the time being, this functionality is being well received by our libraries using the system, expanding the character limitations within the core technology.