Newswise — A recent survey conducted at a university in Indiana confirmed what most college students (and those who work with college students) probably already know: Text messaging is the college student's preferred form of communication.
"Indiana's Ball State University recently surveyed about 300 college students, and found that text messaging is their favored form of telecommunication, becoming more popular than e-mail, instant messaging and calling. [Ninety-four] percent of the students questioned said that they send and receive text messages," wrote Evan Shamoon, in a March 29 blog post on "Switched," (switched.com), a multi-contributor blog that covers digital communication tools and gadgets.
So when Western Illinois University Libraries recently launched the "Text Me" service -- a service provided through CARLI, an Illinois-based consortium of which University Libraries is a member -- WIU library faculty and staff were pretty confident the service would be one that appealed to students. Through Text Me, when a library user finds a book, journal article or other resource through the online catalog on the library's website, he or she can just click on the words "Text me this call number," enter the mobile phone number and service provider and the call number will be sent to the individual's mobile phone in the form of a text message.
"The next step for us was to create a way to tell students about Text Me," explained Andrea Falcone, virtual services librarian at University Libraries. "We decided to use our recently formed 'V-Team' (the 'V' is for 'Video'), which is comprised of faculty, staff and student library workers who are producing videos to promote University Libraries' services."
According to Falcone, the team is collaborative in nature, but a lot of the work -- including the writing, editing and camera work -- will be the purview of library student workers like Lauren-Ashley Barnes, a senior graphic communication major from Flossmoor (IL), and Joshua McEuen, a senior history major from Milton (IL).
The result of the V-Team's first effort is "Text Me," a three-and-a-half minute video that uses an eco-friendly angle and boy-meets-girl-in-the-library story to tell WIU students about the service and how it works. The video is available for viewing on WIU's YouTube (youtube.com/watch?v=2yjlz1zZ1cU) and MySpace (vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=55005337) channels.
"The V-Team's next video will focus on the services provided at WIU's four branch libraries, including the Curriculum Library in Horrabin Hall, the Physical Sciences Library in Currens Hall and the Quad Cities Library at Western's Moline campus," Falcone said.
To see how University Libraries' Text Me service works, check out the video on YouTube or MySpace.
RSS