Increased transparency at QuestionPoint

QuestionPoint has made significant moves lately to make itself more transparent to subscribers. It wasn't that long ago that QuestionPoint's blog was password-protected and only available to libraries that were subscribers. Last year, the blog went public. But the greatest move toward opening up can be seen in these two recent posts on the blog:

Quality Top 10

As the adminstrator for Baruch College's chat reference service, I find myself using the feedback mechanism frequently. Every day, I read the chat sessions that other librarians from other colleges have had with Baruch patrons. If I see that exemplary or problematic service was offered, I have the option of sending a message (from within the QuestionPoint interface) to an ombudsperson at QuestionPoint, who will review my comments and then, if necessary, pass them along with her own commentary to the QuestionPoint administrator at the library whose staff's service caught me eye. This blog post is a distillation of the issues that come up most often in the QuestionPoint quality control feedback loop. If you're not a QuestionPoint subscriber, much of this post won't make sense. But I would like to give credit for QuestionPoint for being open about problems in the way service is sometimes offered in the chat reference cooperative.

QP user group meeting: June 25, 2007

This post captures some of what was said at the user group meeting held during the ALA annual meeting last month. Attendees were asked to submit lists of what they like and, more interestingly, didn't like about the software. I wish I had been able to attend, as I too would have been one of the voices pleading with QuestionPoint (and OCLC honchos) to hurry up and invest all the money and time needed to find a way to integrate IM with their flash chat client.