Conference Paper: If We Build it, Will They Come? — Understanding Reference Users in the Age of Texting

Libraries have always embraced communication technologies to provide reference services. While text messaging becomes a significant avenue for communication and social activities in people’s daily lives, it is rapidly gaining popularity in the library world as well. A new form of reference service, text messaging reference (TMR), has emerged, enabling library users to seek help from librarians via texting.
A research project funded by Institute of Museum and Library Services in the United States has been under take to actively investigate how library users perceive and use TMR. A close scrutiny of TMR from the user’s perspective is essential to ensuring successful service delivery and satisfactory user experiences. Findings from this will offer a thorough depiction of how user information needs can be successfully fulfilled by TMR, and therefore yield insights to help libraries develop TMR best practices, and effectively and efficiently promote and deliver the service to library users.