I love chat reference and our Meebo sessions. I wish it was available to our students 24/7, but I certainly do not want to be the person working in the wee hours of the night. :)
One of the sessions that I attended at the MLA Conference (November 2008) was about a digital reference services that is 24/7. In the future, we might want to consider a similar option through a cooperative service. This service is through Minnesota Libraries and QuestionPoint, a National Reference Cooperative.
Name of the session: AskMN: The Librarian Is In
This session explained how many libraries are teaming up to have 24/7 instant messaging services for patrons. They are now able to have the librarians at a site get first “dibs” on a question posed by their patron. If the librarian at that location is not able to answer the question after a certain period of time OR if their library is closed, the question will be picked up at another location. The participating libraries pay for this service. They provide logins and passwords so librarians that are not working for the institutions where the questions are posed are then able to access the same databases granted to those patrons. Therefore, they are able to “see” what the virtual patron is navigating. This would be a great service for Rasmussen due to the 24/7 availability. The only login and password would be needed as the Non-Rasmussen librarian logged into the Student Portal. The website for this services is AskMN.org, and participating libraries can put the widget on their library homepages. The libraries that are currently utilizing this service are both academic and public. This session was led by Carla Steinberg Pfahl from MINITEX.
