Introduction

Today's technology offers new ways for librarians and users to interact and also provides new opportunities for libraries to deliver services collaboratively to wide and diverse audiences. Text messaging, or texting, is one such technology that libraries are embracing. Texting allows the exchange of text messages on mobile phones. Each message can be up to 160 characters (words, numbers or alphanumeric combination) in length when the Latin alphabet is used. Texting has become an increasingly significant means of communication and social activity in people's lives. The Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project reported that 83% of American adults own mobile phones and 73% send and receive text messages. Young adults are the most frequent texters – mobile phone owners between the ages of 18 and 24 exchange a daily average of 109.5 messages (Smith, 2011). Recognizing the popularity of texting as a means of communication, a growing number of libraries are offering texting-based reference service (text reference service) for their users to seek information and assistance from librarians.

In 2010 the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to study the practice of text reference service, investigating how texting is being used as a new means of providing reference service and how text reference service can fulfil users’ information needs and engage new users, such as teenagers, the fastestgrowing group of individuals using text messaging. The project draws upon the rich pool of data available via My Info Quest (MIQ), the first collaborative text reference service participated in by over 20 multi-type libraries across the United States. MIQ was launched in July 2009. It is self-organized and managed by volunteer member librarians. During the two-year project period the team conducted a number of research studies to examine text reference service from the following perspectives:

• ■ types of information needs of text reference users

• ■ user perceptions and use of text reference service

• ■ competencies requisite for text reference service.

This chapter presents the findings of the project and discusses their implications. The in-depth analysis of text reference practice will help in generating best practice guidelines and therefore lead to an enriched view of texting's affordance as a means of reference service.