O ur patrons' expectations of the library and the services we offer are shifting. They use technology differently, and ask us to help them use their gadgets to access our collections and services. Our patrons also have an increasing appetite for online interaction with the library. In response, the librarians in the Adult Services division at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library have evolved our reference service to include local chat, increased our social media presence, and have started

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... a collection of popular devices for staff training. We were the first public library in Oregon to take the opportunity to use L-Net's software (Spark) for local chat reference service. Launched in May 2009, use of the service is increasing: we currently average 77 chat sessions per month. We wanted to pursue a local chat reference service to better serve our patrons at their point of need on our Web site. John Meier writes in Computers in Libraries that "[o]ur Web sites are frequently the first-or only-point of contact with users, but even with our best usability studies and universal design, the sites can still be confusing" (11). He continues that we need to be in that virtual space ourselves, as "[a]n instant response is what [patrons] want and need" (Meier 11). The sort of questions we answer using chat reference reinforces Meier's argument. Most questions are related to holds, accounts, or database access, all things which are very particular to our library, our Web site, or a specific resource a patron is having trouble accessing. Our chat patrons show great enthusiasm for the service; much of the feedback we receive includes comments such as "Thank you, this chat opportunity is a GREAT service!" and "Thank you! I love this service. Online chat is great." The option to use L-Net's software for a local chat service came up as we were looking into the various options for local chat. We jumped at the chance to be able to provide the service we wanted to our patrons, plus having all the benefits of using L-Net, including great support and easy access to statistics and transcripts. It was important to us that our local chat service was one where patron privacy was valued and protected, and where transcripts and user data aren't owned by a commercial entity. Also, by using a product that most staff already knew how to use, we were able to save some of the time we would have spent on training staff on new software. Caleb Tucker-Raymond, the Service Coordinator at L-Net, set everything up for us. He created our own Corvallis queue for us to log into and monitor using the Spark software we already use to staff our L-Net shifts. He also coded a chat box widget where patrons enter their questions. We can link to this widget anywhere, meaning we can give patrons as many chances as possible to chat with us from our various web pages. In addition to our homepage and our contact pages, we have also put chat links on our Facebook page, our blog, and on all of our subject guides. We monitor the queue at the reference desk, but most Adult Services librarians also log into the queue in the workroom as well, so that we have more than one or two librarians monitoring it. If we are not online, patron questions are routed to L-Net for assistance 24/7. The challenges we faced in offering this service have been relatively minor. There was a period of a few weeks where we were getting swamped by class visits at the same time each day. We were able to determine that the questions were coming from a school in another county. We decided to let students know that our local chat service was for our patrons in Benton County, and that there was a link to L-Net on their local library's homepage. If we