… with their chat, that is.
Let’s start at the beginning. Last summer, the University of Liverpool joined hundreds of other libraries in migrating from OCLC QuestionPoint to the Springshare 24/7 Global Chat Cooperative. If you weren’t aware, Springshare acquired OCLC QuestionPoint in May 2019, which migrated over the QuestionPoint 24/7 Reference Cooperative and all active QuestionPoint subscriptions to Springshare.
Before the migration, the University of Liverpool was a non-contributing member of the Cooperative. Meaning, they received overnight/backup coverage from the Co-Op, but didn’t contribute any hours. All that changed when they migrated to the Springshare 24/7 Co-Op. Like other academic libraries, they joined the Academic Co-Op. Springshare has two others (with more coming!): Public Library Co-Op and the En Español Co-Op.
With the migration came a ton of new exciting features in LibAnswers, including full-text searchable Policy FAQs, live screensharing with Zoom or Microsoft Teams, optional webcam, on-screen annotations, recording capabilities, and more. We added a ton of functionality for librarians to chat with each other and work together – especially in our new remote workplaces – including the ability to screenshare a meeting. We expanded our chat emoji library, added more customizable sounds for new chats, added the ability to automatically create a follow-up ticket from missed chats, and so so so much more.
Suffice it to say, all of these features make it so much easier, and dare we say fun, for libraries to contribute to the Global Chat Cooperative. And with the migration, the University of Liverpool changed their status from non-contributing to contributing – giving 15 hours/week to the Global Chat Cooperative. So, not only are their students receiving 24/7/365 chat support from librarians around the world… Liverpool librarians themselves are answering questions from patrons around the world too! Their chat service has truly gone global!
Are they happy with the service?
In a nutshell, yes! Here’s what they said in a recent interview:
“Cooperative librarians do a great job of providing answers for our customers and the customer feedback on the queries they’ve dealt with is overwhelmingly positive. We’ve seen some really excellent answers from the global librarians; we couldn’t have done a better job if we’d picked those up ourselves.“
— University of Liverpool
Learn more at our live webinar!
If you’d like to learn more about the University of Liverpool going Global with Springshare’s 24/7 Chat Cooperative, join us on February 4 at 11:00am U.S. EST. And hear directly from Gwen Jones, Customer Services Online Manager from the University of Liverpool, discuss their experience offering 24/7 library chat to their students, and what it’s like helping other students around the globe.
If you can’t attend the live webinar, register to receive the recording! It will be available, along with presenter slides/notes, on Buzz.