We are pleased to announce a first major update of the SMS Module for LibAnswers. Our SMS Module clients now have these 3 exciting new functions available to them: Send an SMS. You can now send direct SMS messages to patrons from LibAnswers (i.e. not just reply to a text…
We rolled out the initial (beta) release of the LibAnswers/Instant Messanger integration, so please check it out. Log on to your main LibAnswers admin page (My Admin) and under System Settings tab select “IM Notifications” option. This is where you can setup the integration (you must have a valid GTalk account to do this, but…
Every now and then we stop for moment, take a deep breath, and marvel at the amazing growth of our LibGuides Community – 1,100+ libraries and 17,000+ librarians creating useful guides, collaborating, and sharing content and ideas. We knew we had many international libraries on board, but we recently realized we’re global in…
Even though you have options to use cover art for books from both Syndetics and Amazon, there are some titles for which there are no covers available. So, we created a few placeholder images you can use instead. This is useful if you have 3 or so books in your Books from the Catalog…
We have a new, incredibly useful, report available for the LibAnswers Analytics module – the Visual Data Analyzer. It enables you to create custom X/Y Charts for any combination of metadata values, for even greater insight into how your reference service *really* works. Yes, you heard it right – now…
We are very excited to announce a partnership with Syndetics Solutions, to enable you to use Syndetics book covers in LibGuides “Books from the Catalog” content boxes. You do not have to be a Syndetics subscriber to use this new functionality. We are thankful to our friends at Syndetics for…
We have added another statistics report to the already sizable Reference Analytics module functionality – the “Daily/Hourly Question Distribution” table. The report is available from the “Reference Statistics” and “Reports Wizard” screens in the Reference Analytics Tab. The report shows the number of questions asked each hour, for all Mondays, all…
We were going to celebrate the 1000-th question answered via LibAnswers, but before we could say “cheese”, we realized this number already stands at 1547. Wow! Given that the system was released only recently, this speaks volumes about how popular and useful the system is going to be, and how easy…
Since we introduced LibAnswers at the Chicago ALA, pretty much everybody who has seen the system has been blown away (in a good way 😉 ). LibAnswers is the new, web 2.0 approach to online reference. Patrons can ask questions using natural language and the system will automatically suggest answers, the…
The QuerySpy feature is probably the unsung hero of the LibAnswers system. It enables you to see the question/query activity in your system, i.e. what people are typing and searching for, in real time. Seeing the QuerySpy in action reveals its amazing benefit. Many clients tell us the QuerySpy feature itself is worth…
