1. SMS Alerts@VU omg lol Lesley Nelson Library Systems Coordinator
Victoria University

2. III’s SMS Alerts product
Patrons must opt in
Patrons still receive /print circ notices
160 character limit
Innovative’s SMS Alerts product enables patrons to optionally receive mobile phone text messages as a supplement to and print circulation notices
This does not replace the normal or print notices: the alerts are brief (maximum 160 characters) and include no item details
Patrons must opt in via their “My Library” patron record in the WebPAC to start receiving alerts. The service starts when they receive a confirmation text message. They can opt out at any time.

3. Types of alerts: Courtesy Hold Pickup Hourly Overdue Overdue Recall
Sent when the corresponding notice is sent, except for hold pickup (sent when item checked in)
Overdue alerts sent when overdue notices are sent, not when item becomes overdue
Alerts are available for the following types of circulation notice:
Courtesy
Hold Pickup
Hourly Overdue
Overdue
Recall
(Not available for cancellation notices)
Alerts are generated when the corresponding notice is sent, except hold pickup alerts, which are sent when you check in an item for the holdshelf (so be quick!).
It would be good if overdue alerts went as soon as items became overdue (especially hourly overdues) but unfortunately they only go out when the overdue notices are sent.

4. Text of opt in confirmation message Hours that alerts are sent
The Library specifies
Text of alerts
Text of opt in confirmation message
Hours that alerts are sent
The Library specifies which types of alerts they want and the text for each type
The Library specifies the text of the opt in confirmation message which is sent when the patron opts in
The Library specifies the hours that alerts are sent (tip: not during the middle of the night!)

5. The Library must set up an account with OpenMarket to send the alerts
Sending the messages
The Library must set up an account with OpenMarket to send the alerts
Accounts can be pre-pay or post-pay
Cost is roughly A$0.09 per SMS
OpenMarket can provide a free test account
Sending the messages
The Library sets up an account with an SMS service provider called OpenMarket (formerly MX Telecom) to send the alerts. OpenMarket is the only provider III allows. (Note: This is for non-US libraries only. I believe III hosts the service for US libraries).
Accounts can be “pre-pay” (buy a batch of messages and use up the credit) or “post-pay” (pay monthly for a specified amount of messages, plus extra if you send more).
Cost is roughly 9c per message, and can be less depending on quantity purchased.
We chose pre-pay initially as we didn’t know how many messages per month we would be sending, however we ran into difficulties running out of credit before we had bought the next batch so we are now looking at the post-pay option.
OpenMarket can provide a free test account with a limited number of messages when you are first setting up.

6. Implementation at VU : a history Nov 2011: Paid for 6 month trial
Dec 2011: Upgrade to Release 2011 and new server required so delayed to midyear 2012
July 2012: More delays due to installation issues at another Australian library
Feb 2013: SMS Alerts finally installed!
Mar 2013: Tested but not receiving alerts
May 2013: Issue resolved by setting up delivery report URL. At last able to receive alerts!
June 2013: III kindly agreed to extend our original 6 month trial period to 12 months from August 2013 to August 2014
Nov 2011: Victoria University is a higher and vocational education institution based in Melbourne Australia. VU Library wanted to try out the SMS Alerts product because anecdotal evidence suggested that students tended not to look at their VU s, and we thought that students would be more likely to see an SMS message. We arranged for a 6 month trial of the SMS Alerts product, paying a proportion of the cost with the balance to be paid if we decided to keep the product.
Dec 2011: We found out we needed to upgrade to Release 2011 first. Then we discovered we needed a new server before we could upgrade. Semester was approaching fast so we delayed the upgrade until the midyear break in June
July 2012: We were finally ready to install SMS Alerts, but III were having issues installing it at another Australian library so we were asked to wait until these were resolved
Feb 2013: SMS Alerts finally installed!
Mar 2013: When testing we found we were able to opt in, and we received the confirmation message, but we never received any alerts and the opt in status remained as “pending”
May 2013: III advised that we needed to set up a delivery report URL on our OpenMarket account, so that the system could receive a delivery report that the opt in confirmation message had been received. Once this was done we were at last able to start receiving alerts!
June 2013: Due to the delays III kindly agreed to extend our original 6 month trial period to 12 months from August 2013 to August 2014

7. Implementation at last
June-July 2013: Library staff test service in staging WebPAC
24 July 2013: We go live! Big promotion effort
signage
global s
info on library home page
June-July 2013: All library staff assisted with testing the service, which was initially only made available in the staging WebPAC. Unfortunately once the alerts were working we ran out of messages on our free OpenMarket test account. We had to sign a contract and set up a paid account, which further delayed things
24 July 2013: We go live at last! Promotion included a message added to the circ notices text, as well as signs, global s, information on the library home page

8. Opting in
Opting in
Patrons opt in by logging into their “My Library” patron record in WebPAC and clicking on the Modify Patron lnformation link (which we have labelled “Opt in to receive library notices via SMS”), entering their mobile number in the box (no spaces), ticking Opt In and clicking Submit. Note that the international prefix is not required (the system assumes patrons are local).
This process is all set up by editing Web Options, customisable web forms and user messages and so is very customisable. We don’t normally allow patrons to modify their own records as we download patron records from our university admin systems, so we are only using the Modify Patron Information option for SMS Alerts.
Once opted in the mobile phone number appears in a special field (field tag o) in the Millennium patron record. However it is important to note that when the patron opts in the mobile phone number is also stored elsewhere on the system, in an area not accessible by library staff, and it is this stored number which is used to send the alerts. So even if the number in the patron record happens to be deleted or modified, the alerts still go to the number originally entered by the patron. So library staff can’t “opt in” users by entering their mobile number into the record in Millennium, and can’t change the number for them in Millennium either.

9. Showed as 12345678. Can ask III to customise
Opt in confirmation
Welcome to the VU Library SMS Alerts service. We’ll send you a text when you have holds to pick up, loans that are nearly due or overdue loans. DO NOT REPLY
Sender/From display
Showed as Can ask III to customise
Can be phone number up to 16 digits or text up to 11 characters
Ours is VU Library
Opt in confirmation
The patron should receive a confirmation text message within a minute or so (if the number is correct and the phone is turned on). Our confirmation message is
Welcome to the VU Library SMS Alerts service. We’ll send you a text when you have holds to pick up, loans that are nearly due or overdue loans. DO NOT REPLY
The patron will not receive alerts until the system has received a report that the confirmation message has been successfully delivered, and then the patron’s status changes to “opted in”. So it is important to ensure that OpenMarket sends delivery reports back to the designated system URL (as we discovered earlier this year).
We found that the message sender showed as “ ”. We naturally wanted to change this and found it can be customised by III: it can be a phone number up to 16 digits or text up to 11 characters. We don’t have a staffed library mobile phone to receive text messages from patrons, so we preferred just to show our name rather than a phone number. Luckily “VU Library” is only 10 characters so that’s what we requested. I’m not sure if you used a phone number whether patrons could actually send responses to that number, I’m awaiting confirmation from III.

10. The item you requested is available for pickup at VU Library.
Our text messages
The item you requested is available for pickup at VU Library.
DO NOT REPLY. For more info go to:
or call
Hold Pickup
This is a reminder that your VU Library loan is due back soon.
DO NOT REPLY. For more info go to:
or call
Courtesy
Overdue/
Hourly
overdue
Your VU Library loan is overdue.
DO NOT REPLY. For more info go to:
or call
Our text messages
Hold Pickup Alerts
The item you requested is available for pickup at VU Library.
DO NOT REPLY. For more info go to:
[link to patron record] or call [library service desk phone]
Courtesy Alerts
This is a reminder that your VU Library loan is due back soon… etc.
Overdue/Hourly Overdue Alerts
Your VU Library loan is overdue… etc.
Important to add the link to the patron record so that patrons can check the details and renew loans. Loans staff requested we add the phone number as well
We added the DO NOT REPLY because we found when testing that some mobile phone services allowed users to reply, and so may well expect a response. Replies don’t actually go anywhere. The alerts are sent by the system, not by an actual phone.
We also specified a text for Recalls but we don’t actually send recall notices so they never get sent.

11. Opt in statistics
These opt in statistics were counted by listing patron records containing the special mobile phone number field (tag o). However note that the field remains in the record even if the patron opts out, so the presence of this field is not an indication of whether they are still using the service.
The graph shows the total opted in at the end of each month from July to October (we went live on 24 July). Opt in numbers increased rapidly in the first month after going live but seem to have plateaued after that.

12. Opt in Statistics by Patron Type
PTYPEs opted in as of 11 Nov
No. opted in
Total in PTYPE
% of PTYPE
VU Library Staff 36
125
28.80%
Patrons from other unis (CAVAL, ULANZ) 47
544
8.64%
VU Masters Students
165
1937
8.52%
VU PhD Students 74
912
8.11%
VU Undergrad Students
688
19738
3.49%
VU Grad Dip Students 38
1354
2.81%
VU External Borrowers 3
132
2.27%
VU Alumni 14
1070
1.31%
VU TAFE Staff 11
926
1.19%
VU Higher Ed Staff 22
1926
1.14%
VU General Staff (non-Library)
2451
0.90%
VU TAFE Students
101
16779
0.60%
VU Offshore Students 10
7239
0.14%
TOTAL
1231
Opt in Statistics by Patron Type
This table shows how many patrons had opted in by 11 November 2013 and their patron types.
So far 1,231 patrons have opted in, which is only 2.22% of our 55,382 current patrons.
The table shows that undergraduates make up by far the biggest proportion of users opted in (688 out of a total of 1,231). However looking at the numbers opted in as a proportion of the total in that patron type tells a different story. VU Library staff have the highest opt in rate (28.8% of library staff have opted in) which is hardly surprising as library staff were asked to test the service during implementation. The next highest rate is 8.64% for patrons from other universities using reciprocal borrowing schemes like CAVAL and ULANZ. This is intriguing. Could they be used to such a service at their own universities? Or possibly they are just keen library users, which is why they have enrolled at another library?
The users with the next biggest opt in rates are VU Masters and PhD students with 8.52% and 8.11% respectively, well ahead of the next group, the undergraduates, at 3.49%. Perhaps the research students are heavy borrowers and so find the alerts helpful?
At the other end of the scale TAFE students, despite being the second biggest cohort, are very low users with an opt in rate of only 0.6%, even lower than staff.
The offshore students figure is very low, which is as expected as they would not normally receive notices as they don’t place holds or borrow library items. Possibly those students are onshore sometimes, or incorrectly coded. (A closer examination reveals that nearly all these students have local addresses, and so their coding is incorrect. The one with the Malaysian address remains a mystery).

13. Message delivery statistics
7176 messages sent between 24 July and 11 November 2013
6980 delivered (failure rate 2.73%)
Roughly 65 message sent per day, 455 per week
Month
Messages sent
July
330
August
2103
September
2179
October
1828
Message delivery statistics
The delivery stats are from OpenMarket’s customer portal. You can get a range of useful statistics there.
7176 messages sent between 24 July and 11 November 2013
6980 delivered (failure rate only 2.73%). The failures happen if the phone is turned off, or not working, or if the phone number was entered incorrectly when the patron opted in.
Roughly 65 message sent per day, 455 per week
The table shows the number of messages sent per month (we went live on 24 July), around 2000 per month so far.

14. Lessons Learnt and Future Plans
More promotion needed to increase opt in rates, particularly for TAFE students and undergraduates. More promotion planned for start of semester
If pre-paying make sure you don’t run out of credits!
Will review before trial expires in August 2014
May poll our patrons to see if they want the service to continue
Lessons Learnt So Far
More promotion is needed to increase opt in rates, particularly for TAFE students and undergraduates. We will do a big push in time for the start of semester
If pre-paying make sure you don’t run out of credits! We had a couple of "credit failure" mix ups with OpenMarket along the way. Post paying is safer, although you may end up paying for more messages than you actually use.
Will review the product next year before trial expires in August
May do a quick poll of our patrons to see if they would like the SMS Alerts service to continue