Exam Cram is almost done, and we’re winding down another semester. This is usually the time for us Web folks to update things and make changes, scrambling to improve things before the Winter semester gets in gear. But this year will be a little slower. No major changes, save one: we’ll be switching the service that we use to provide live chat from libraryh3lp to Springshare’s LibChat.
This is the first step in our larger Knowledge Base project, where we’re hoping to centralize our help offerings for patrons in one place, for all of our systems. The change will be largely seamless for patrons—the button will still look the same, and they’ll get a pop-up chat window when they click it. They will have some new features, however, like the ability to save their chat transcript for future reference and the ability to upload screenshots and files.
For the folks running chat, the change will be more drastic, since it will be a new system. We’re hoping that the new features that LibChat offers (hellllllooooooo spellcheck!) will make the adjustment worth it. LibChat has a ton of other great features, too, like canned responses for common questions, one-click recording of sessions in our analytics tracker, and easy transfering of chats from one operator to another.
Kristin and I will be working on training the UX staff over the next week on the new system, and then I have about a dozen places where I have to change the code for the chat button. You can find updates on how we’re doing right here!