JYBE in all its rosy goodness

a hTwo days ago, Brian Hoogendam from Advanced Reality, Inc. gave me a tour of a new version of JYBE.  In addition to what we already love about JYBE (chat, co-browsing, IE & Firefox compatibility, Skype), the new JYBE has:

• a Live Help button which, with one simple click, connects the patron to a JYBE session with a librarian.
• a Home button which you can configure to take our patrons to the library's homepage
• a Hotlinks button, with a list of pre-defined websites (databases, library catalog, whatever)
• a Library Has It button, which, depending on what webpage the user is on, will lead the user to any pre-defined page of the library’s choosing (e.g. if the user is on the homepage for Newsweek, the button could take the user to the library’s online subscription database with Newsweek holdings).
• co-browsing in subscription databases without any hiccups
• the ability to highlight on webpages (pointing to what we're talking about)

The user downloads this little toolbar once, and it's forever more right there in their web browser.  Anytime the user wants help from a librarian, he/she simply clicks on the “Live Help” button and gets connected.  The librarian simply has a webpage queue up, and anytime a user clicks on that button, (s)he shows up in the queue and the librarian picks the user up.

This version would not be free, and Brian and I discussed some preliminary pricing models.  I believe the pricing to be very competitive with big-name web-based chat reference models.

JYBE is so much easier than so many of the big-name web-based chat products.  The user doesn’t have to remember to go to a specific webpage to get library help-that little button would always be there in the web browser, putting us where the patron is.  The interface for the librarian is simple.  The interface for the patron is simple.  Remember-Northern Illinois University is already using JYBE for online reference (though, not this newest version).  I expect to see many more libraries following suit and picking up the new JYBE.