When UCLA librarian Michelle Jacobs receives a text message, she hits the books before she hits the reply button.
Jacobs, the emerging technologies and Web coordinator, is one of two librarians who answers reference and research questions for the Ask a Librarian text messaging service.
Students commonly inquire about library hours and research materials, Jacobs said. For example, librarians received the text: “I am writing a species report on the manatee. Where can I find scholarly resources?”
Students looking for a book can also shoot out a text and have a librarian meet them in the stacks, she added.
The program started in fall 2008 and is still in its beginning stages. Librarians aim to expand the service by the start of the next school year.
“There are a lot of different ways to get in touch with a librarian,” Jacobs said in reference to the library’s other services, like online chat. “No one size fits all, so we want to have as many avenues as possible for students to get to us.”
Since the text reference service is fairly new and the library has not heavily publicized it, only a handful of students have used it. A total of 234 text transactions have taken place since the service started. This quarter, librarians received 24 texts by the end of eighth week.
“So far I haven’t had the need to use it,” said Luke Lighthizer, a first-year mechanical engineering student. “But if I was doing a research project it would be helpful because it’s such a big library, I wouldn’t know where to start.”
UCLA uses software provided by Upside Wireless to send the texts to librarians’ phones and e-mail inboxes. They can then respond through either medium. The library ensures students’ privacy by not recording their phone numbers, though it does keep a transcript of the messages for data collecting purposes, Jacobs said.
UC system librarians are discussing broadening text messaging services at all nine campuses, said Sarah Watstein, UCLA associate university librarian. One option is implementing the Text a Librarian software designed by the company Mosio.
“We agree that texting is a service that we should provide. The question is how we do it,” Watstein said.
Text a Librarian could open up a large support system for text messaging by sending student questions to librarians nationwide if no one at UCLA was available to answer, said Joseph Yue, social sciences librarian. However, the university may also decide to stick with the software it currently uses, he added.
The texting program makes good use of the media most popular with students, said Steve Peterson, a lecturer in communication studies.
“The one limitation might be that it’s very difficult to ask a detailed reference question,” Peterson said. “I don’t know how deep you can get in 160 characters or less.”
Another downside is the loss of face-to-face interaction, Jacobs said. Second-year economics student Jason Constantouros said for his last research paper he decided to receive help directly from a librarian.
“I used to not text at all, and I still don’t like to if I have something long to say,” he said, adding that most of his research questions were too lengthy to fit in a text.
Still, librarians can help students find the information they need, whether through text messages, online chat or in person.
Jacobs said students working on a project will sometimes ask for a specific article, but as they progress in their research, they wind up citing a completely different work. As a librarian, Jacobs’ job is to look beyond the original question and find out what a student is really looking for, she said.
“When you go to buy a pair of jeans, the first pair might not be the perfect jeans. You might have to try on 13 pairs. That’s sort of like doing a research project,” Jacobs said.
“You tell us jeans in size six and we ask what style, how you want them to fit, what you’re wearing them for. And maybe it turns out that you need a little black dress instead.”