[Web4lib] Thanks... SMS to Chat help

[Jennifer Heise]

Hi! LibraryH3lp (chat reference service) has an integrated gateway that can
connect to Google Voice to pick up SMS text messages sent to your Google
Voice number.

Google Voice is a free service but you have to have an invite (we had to
request one then wait about 6 months for ours). You have a single number
that can be directed to ring at one or more regular numbers (my roommate is
setting this up for us at home so we can have a 'contact phone number' to
give out that will ring for all our cell phones and land line.

Google Voice, obviously, also accepts SMS/Chat messages at that number.

When you have set up a GoogleVoice gateway in your LibraryH3lp account,
Texts sent to that GoogleVoice account will show up in the LibraryH3lp chat;
if no librarian is logged on to LibraryH3lp when the text is received, it
just pops up as soon as someone logs in. We've found that the incoming (from
cell phone to LibraryH3lp) path is somewhat slow-- up to 30 minutes; but the
outgoing message from LibraryH3lp to the user's cell phone is quite swift.

[You can also use your regular Gchat to send and respond to SMS messages
(option you can turn on in Google Labs), but my friends have found that the
outgoing messages are often lost if you send out through Gchat.]

-- Jenne Heise

On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 6:00 PM, Christa E. Van Herreweghe <
Christa at ucpl.lib.mo.us> wrote:

> Hmmm, I'm not familiar with Google Voice.  What are you doing with it
> specifically?
>
>
> Christa Van Herreweghe
> IT/Reference Librarian
> University City Public Library
> www.ucpl.lib.mo.us
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Jennifer Heise
> Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 10:43 AM
> To: web4lib
> Subject: [Web4lib] Thanks... SMS to Chat help
>
> Several months ago, I asked about services libraries were using to
> provide
> SMS 'texting' reference through a chat interface. I got a lot of helpful
> responses. As a result, we eventually moved from Meebo chat to
> LibraryH3lp,
> something we'd been planning to do, and signed up for Google Voice. I'm
> happy to report we have a working SMS chat and are planning when to
> publicize it now!
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Jennifer Heise
>
> known in the SCA as Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
>


-- 
Jennifer Heise

known in the SCA as Jadwiga Zajaczkowa