[Web4lib] Any feedback on "Text a Librarian" ?

[KLINGLER, THOMAS]

Folks,

Anyone use this service with success?    --or, not?

http://www.textalibrarian.com/

It's a gateway between text messaging and instant messaging with a web page in between for the librarian.  It allows the end-user to send a text message to the library; the librarian can deal with it on a web page, and their response goes back to the handheld from whence the text originated.

(Don't ask the question that, if it's a synchronous activity that involves a phone,  why doesn't the person just CALL the library?!  If you ask that question, you are too logical and obviously don't have teenagers or 20-something kids, and you must be ready for retirement!  ;-)

Reference folks here want to give it a try.  The company looks to have just a small number of customers so far.  (I hear that they had thick carpet and a big booth at ALA.)

My main concern is whether folks will bother to use it, since the end-user apparently will need to know TWO pieces of data: the address and the special keyword that they have to send in their text.   (To use the talking part of the phone, they only need to know ONE piece of data, that old-fashioned phone-number thing.)

At $ 1,200 per year, it seems worth a one-year try...

I'd appreciate any feedback.   Alternate suggestions and/or competitors, too.

(I should mention that we're using Meebome on our site with good success and fairly heavy traffic.  http://www.library.kent.edu/page/13983  )



Thanks,

Tom Klingler
Assistant Dean
University Libraries
Library Room 383
Kent State University
Kent, Ohio 44242-0001
330-672-1646