[Web4lib] Mahalo Answers - The latest commercial virtual reference wrinkle

[Chris Barr]

Hi Bernie et al.,

While these large crowd-sourced one-stop-shops may not be sustainable in 
the long run or provide a commercial revenue stream, I believe the basic 
model of these sites is useful for libraries to replicate in their own 
environment. (While the economic models might be interesting, the UI 
innovation of simplifying what would otherwise be a forum is also worth 
noting.)

The truth is that we are answering questions all the time and not always 
extracting all of the value out of these transactions. Many of us are 
logging those questions into tracking systems for statistics. Here at 
Villanova we had been using the open source Libstats 
(http://code.google.com/p/libstats/) software for a couple of years. 
What we realized is that we had a great knowledgebase that our patrons 
had no access to.

So, we built our own little frontend to Libstats, where users could post 
a question on our website, it would be answered by a librarian (or 
another patron), an email would then be sent to the patron alerting them 
to the answer, and the q&a then remains on the web to be found through 
our sites search, Google, or by browsing.

Here is what we came up with (highly inspired by Yahoo! Answers):
http://library.villanova.edu/Help/Answers

We launched this in August, and we still have improvements to make to 
our system to make it full-featured, but I think it will be far more 
valuable to our community than the handful of FAQs that we provided in 
the past. Now we just need cute avatars!

The difference from the local system to the big guys:
1. It has a context.
2. A smaller, controlled community. (You have to have a University ID to 
ask a question in our instance.)
3. Librarians are answering questions that they would have to answer 
anyhow. It is part of our job and we get paid to do it (and not in 
Mahalo dollars). We are just trying to extract more value out of the 
answers by providing them to the whole community rather than just one 
person.

Libraries should not be worried that questions are being asked and 
answered on the Internet by people other than librarians. (We wouldn't 
expect librarians to hang out at the mall to answer questions for a 
dollar, why would we want to do the equivalent in cyberspace?) Libraries 
should be concerned if they have not provided an easy way to ask 
questions on their own online environment.

Going forward we should be thinking about how the knowledge we create 
can have value to not only our own community but also to others on the 
web running into similar issues as our own patrons. The information we 
create needs to be just as easy to use and discoverable as the others...

Best wishes,

Chris Barr
Interface & Design Specialist
Falvey Memorial Library
Villanova University




Steven E. Patamia, Ph.D. wrote:
> Hi Bernie,
>
>    I think we agree that when Google Answers folded it was a bad sign
> for the viability of the idea.  I recall that Google answers tended to
> fetched a higher financial reward than Mahalo and what little I saw of
> it reflected much more serious research efforts.  I am not quite sure
> whether Google explained why it closed it up (a research project!) as
> it probably didn't cost them much to host it.  I do think that Mahalo
> has a poor chance of reaching self-perpetuation -- but I don't wish
> them ill nor do I claim to see the future that precisely.
>
>    What you and I are sensing is that there is something missing or
> poorly conceived about the way answer systems like Mahalo and even
> Yahoo work.  As a librarian, you are quite naturally intrigued by the
> implications.  I am curious for slightly different reasons.
>
>    In a perfect world, (as you view it of course<g>) what role should
> librarians play in contributing to ad hoc information requests?
>
> On 12/16/08, B.G. Sloan <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   
>>  Steven Patamia asks:
>>
>>  "...would somebody PLEASE explain to me WHY any librarian would WANT to spend their time answering questions in this manner?   I can imagine some answers, but I'd really want to hear from librarians why they are either worried or enamored of this.  Maybe I am missing something important -- would not be the first time<g>!"
>>
>>  I wasn't suggesting that librarians should want to participate in Q&A services like Mahalo Answers, and I wasn't saying that librarians should necessarily be worried about or enamored of these services. I was just pointing out yet another commercial Q&A service attempting to fill a niche that I've long held that librarians were ideally suited for: online reference services.
>>
>>  Sure, libraries offer online reference services, but I don't think they've come close to reaching the potential that I and others saw back in the early days of online/virtual reference in the mid-to-late 1990s.
>>
>>  Many of the commercial Q&A services have fallen by the wayside. And others, like Yahoo! Answers, have become more like social software sites than straightforward Q&A services.
>>
>>  When Google Answers folded I found myself thinking that if a company like Google, with all its dollars, can't make a Q&A service work...maybe there isn't a real market for these services? Maybe people are "satisficed" enough by the information they can find on their own? And maybe that's why library online/virtual reference services never really met the expectations held by the early pioneers of online/virtual reference...maybe there's not a big enough demand?
>>
>>
>>  Bernie Sloan
>>  Sora Associates
>>  Bloomington, IN
>>
>>
>>
>>     
>
> --
> Steven E. Patamia, Ph.D., J.D.
> Personal Cell: (352) 219-6592
>
>
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