Digital Reference User Stats at U. of California Libraries + QuestionPoint Qwidget to Central Version of Melvyl

From CDLINFO News:

Students have been able to chat with a librarian any time, any place from the campus interfaces of WorldCat Local (WCL) Melvyl since May 2010.  As of Wednesday, August 17, 2011 patrons will also see the “chat with a librarian” Qwidget in the central version of Melvyl (http://melvyl.worldcat.org).

The UC Heads of Public Services (HOPS) Digital Reference Common Interest Group (CIG) has been the driving force behind UC’s 24/7 Digital Reference service, which began as a pilot in November 2006.  In its first year as an official program begun by a few UC campuses, UC librarians answered 5,825 questions, with additional campuses joining the program as they were ready.   By fiscal year 2010/2011, UC logged in 24,660 sessions.  A trusty 3.5% of our night-owl students asked questions between midnight and 4:00 AM!  This year 13% of QuestionPoint queries were initiated from within the Melvyl interfaces, making it an important starting point for reference questions.

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