At 7:38 p.m. local time on November 10 in St. Lucia, Australia, a student at the University of Queensland posed this question to the library: “The text Sports Coaching Cultures: From Practice to Theory by Jones, Armour, and Protrac is no longer available as an e-book ... Does the library intend to re-new its subscription?” The question might have been asked from the student’s dormitory room, home kitchen, or even the floor of the library!
Whatever the location, we know it wasn’t at the reference desk because the question was posed via a form on the library’s Web site, and the form was then e-mailed to the library via the QuestionPoint service. Within 20 minutes, the student had an e-mailed answer from a librarian with instructions, which he could either print out or save to his laptop, on where to find a print version or request a loan.
The 5 millionth question illustrates one of the convenient, often-used features in QuestionPoint: the ability to refer a question to a person who does not have a QuestionPoint account. In this case, the question was referred to electronic resources staff at the library, to answer the student’s question about subscription renewal.
The University of Queensland Library has been a QuestionPoint member using the chat service since early 2003. In April 2008, library staff added the webform e-mail service of QuestionPoint. By the end of 2008, the library had handled nearly 4,100 questions via QuestionPoint, and by the end of 2009 that had increased to over 7,400 questions per year. Although the 5 millionth question came through the webform e-mail service, more than half of the library’s QuestionPoint transactions are live chats, and all of those are now through the QuestionPoint widget, Qwidget.
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