Merced College has launched a new “Text-a-Librarian” service for our students. The idea was inspired by a Library Association of the University of California conference presentation where high school students spoke about emerging technologies, libraries, mobile devices and social networking sites. Personal experience with teenagers validated what the students in the panel presented. Mobile phone use is ubiquitous and texting is a preferred method of communications for many young adults. According to Nielsen research, text-messaging has become so pervasive that U.S. mobile subscribers now send and receive more text-messages than they do phone calls http://bit.ly/c2ADvM. These numbers have been increasing exponentially over the past few years. Why not integrate text reference into library services if this is a preferred method of communication for many of our students?
The Text-a-Librarian service allows our students to text message reference questions. The questions arrive in multiple librarian email accounts, or the questions also may be integrated into Meebo or IM clients. Librarians can answer the questions through a simple webpage interface without accessing a cell phone. Students receive answers sent as text back to their cell phones. So far the response has been positive and the Text-a-Librarian service has proven user-friendly for our librarians. Currently, we are answering text reference questions during regular library reference hours. The program allows up to set-up an automatic response when no text reference is available. Further information on Text-a-Librarian can be found at http://www.textalibrarian.com/. TTYL!
Nancy Golz
Electronic Services Librarian, Merced College
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