If you have a serious question don't turn to KGB: the story of how this for-profit text ref service fails

A few years ago during the NCAA Basketball Tournament Questia was dropping a lot of cash on commercials, essentially trying to lure college kids (or their parents) into monthly subscriptions for materials that most of them probably already had access to. The real product though wasn’t the books and articles per se, but the idea of getting information via an easy-to-use centralized interface. A dream that academic libraries have failed to provide (although we’re getting closer with products like SUMMON.)
 

This year I’ve been seeing ads for the text service KGB. They are not a new company, in fact I’ve wanted to write this post for a long time but it took a state holiday to free up the time. Anyway KGB purports to offer “high-quality answers on the go” for 99 cents. They are appealing to mobile users everywhere who just want answers. Looking at their sample questions online they are pretty much targeting old-school ready reference inquiries such as city populations and demographics, weather, trivia, and video game cheat codes.
  

As a librarian I know that I am oversensitive about others encroaching on the information expert game… or maybe that is just my competitive nature? I wanted to test these experts who are selling “a better way to get answers, fast and fun!”
  

So here we go:

   I was asked this type of thing all the time at Georgia Tech.

 Yes, the article is 5 pages long but is that the right page number?

 Wow. I feel like they didn't even try. 
 

Apparently they have a deal if you ask three questions the fourth one is free. For this one I thought I’d get introspective. The response pretty much sums it up.

 
  

Looking Ahead

I think that over the next two years we’ll see more and more libraries launching text reference services. I have mixed feelings about this actually. I’m all for expanding into new frontiers, yet at the same time I question the value of having a librarian answer txts. In my world that workforce is shrinking and so we have to be conscious of the give & take.
 

Anyway, there is already too much hype around txt ref right now, but it will be interesting to see if KGB stays around. I don’t say that with some sort of naive arrogance presuming that librarians are so great, but rather, I wonder if people will pay for answers. We’ve seen this fail before with Google Answers, yet thrive with a free version offered by Yahoo. We’ll have to wait and see, but one thing is certain KGB is lame. I wouldn't hire these folks to help my patrons.

NOTE:

Ok. So I know this is not a fair evaluation. I’m sure someone is working on a scholarly article right now that compares texting a library vs. these for-profit services. KGB is an easy target and my questions might not be typical, although they are not atypical from a regular ref desk. This was really just meant to be a little entertainment on a Friday afternoon. I need to get out more! 

Comments

[stevenb]

Other inquiring minds have questioned the value of these services and whether than can compare to what academic librarians offer. See:
http://chronicle.com/article/Electronic-Libraries-Can-t-Be/5122

[Jason Dean]

I've had a fair amount of success using Aardvark for reference-related questions:
http://vark.com

It's mostly individuals on there now, but if libraries got involved, it might get interesting!

[Bill Bucharest]

"per say" is spelled "per se"

[Bill Bucharest]

"forth" should be "fourth"

[brian]

Thanks Mr Bucharest.

[Text a Librarian]

Text a Librarian!

[anita]

I know a pretty good number of unemployed library school grads who have started answering questions for them at $.10 a pop - maybe quality will go up soon?

[Elizabeth]

Back when I was in library school I did the training for KGB before realizing that between two internships it just wasn't going to happen.

The training is actually pretty decent, but remember that they are limited based on what resources they have at their disposal and who is manning the service at any given time. We all know that if you go up to a desk with two different people chances are you'll get a different answer each time.

And while I agree that I wouldn't ask them real reference questions, it's great for bar trivia - the kinds of questions you get over the phone when working friday or saturday evenings. But given the fact that many libraries are removing librarians from the reference desk/service points (my institution just did that) - general reference services are changing all over.

[Luke]

I signed up to be a KGB agent. The types of questions received were ridiculous ranging from inane pop star queries to pornographic sex acts.
Each answer requires a URL source. For the amount of research required to get each legitimate answer, it is a waste of time for anybody expecting to make any money as an agent. Some people are lucky to make $1 an hour. It is not too bad if your goal is to help out and treat it like a game answering questions while watching TV and not for the pay.