Virtual Reference

[Harris, Jennifer]

Wow-thank you so much for all this information! I'll definitely take a look at LivePerson soon.
Thanks!
Jennifer

From: Web technologies in libraries [mailto:WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Wilhelmina Randtke
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 2:06 PM
To: WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [WEB4LIB] Virtual Reference

Jennifer,

At Florida State University Libraries, we were on Meebo, then went to LivePerson, then went to a product provided by a regional library consortium.

This is about LivePerson:

LivePerson has the IT done by an outside company for a monthly fee.

LivePerson was OK to implement and brand with the university libraries' logo. Implementing chat was easy.  You get a piece of xhtml to insert, and a nontechnical person could do this.  Making the chat button not say "LivePerson" and instead say the name of your library is more technical.  You will probably need some web development background, and a few hours to read the documentation from the vendor.  (This is easier than setting up Meebo, so you should be good to go on technical skills to do this.)

The most annoying thing about implementing LivePerson was we could not embed a chat window into a webpage.  Instead we had to have this as a pop up.  (It was possible to embed the box in a webpage, but doing so meant that any visitors browsing to that page would initiate a chat with the reference librarian.  LivePerson initiated the chat as soon as the patron browsed to the page, regardless of whether that person initiated a chat or even interacted at all with the chat box.  So embedding the box would make many many false hits.  In contrast, Meebo's embedded chat boxes only initiated a chat at the point when the patron typed and submitted text into the chat box.)

Creating user accounts for librarians was easy, and this was easy to manage from the administrator's perspective.  You could have a librarian with out much IT background act as administrator, so a reference librarian can easily create and delete user accounts, and you will not need to go through IT.

The reason we switched away from the product was, LivePerson was miserable about giving reports on use.  With the basic account, you can view transcripts of chats...  and that's it.  It is possible to analyze chats by counting and copying details about chats into a spread sheet, but basically a basic account in LivePerson will not let you get statistics about LivePerson use.  With LivePerson, you get No metrics on how long chats last, No metrics on how long patrons wait for a response after asking a question, no metrics on what time of day chats are most common. LivePerson gives you just about NO metrics on NOTHING.  Instead, Live Person will try to sell you an upgraded account (pro - the highest level of service) in order to be able to pull reports on use.

The basic account will also not include screensharing, or other features.  Even worse, outdated guidance on older versions of LivePerson will tell you that features are included in the basic account when they aren't.  Technical support is not particularly good, and generally after some back-and-forth the rep would determine that the feature we couldn't use had been removed from the basic subscription, and would try to sell us a more expensive account.

Overall, LivePerson is good for being able to put a (nonbranded) chat button up on your webpage quickly and without requiring web development background.  It is bad for getting reports on how patrons are using the service.

(I did only setting up and tech support for this.  I didn't use the librarian's interface to assist patrons, though, so anyone who used the chat interface to serve patrons could weigh in.  Is it easy to use?  Intuitive?)

-Wilhelmina Randtke

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 10:17 AM, Harris, Jennifer <jharris at mercyhurst.edu<mailto:jharris at mercyhurst.edu>> wrote:
Hello,

We are currently using Meebo to provide our users with chat reference. However, we've noticed some buggy behavior with Meebo and we'd like to consider getting (or buying) a better option for providing virtual reference.

Would anyone be willing to share what they use to provide virtual reference? Does anyone have suggestions for virtual reference options besides Meebo? What about video? Does anyone have virtual reference with live video as well and what are you using?

Thanks,
Jennifer

Jennifer Harris
Systems and Teaching Librarian
Mercyhurst University
Hammermill Library
501 E. 38th Street
Erie, PA 16546
814-824-3305<tel:814-824-3305>

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