Instant Messaging

I have used instant messaging through Google, Facebook, and Communicator. Also, I have used chatting for classes and for reference work (through Answer Zone). My first experience with it was for one of my online SLIS classes at UNT. I thought it was an excellent way to get an entire class together without having to physically be in the same room. Graduate students generally have very hectic and conflicting schedules. There are some people who live miles away from the university, people with full-time jobs with varying hours, people with families to take care of, people with disabilities, and some people with all of the above. The chat room was much more convenient for meeting than meeting physically. It was also nice for people who are somewhat introverted, like me, as it is easier to ask questions, make comments, and be "heard" online than it is in a classroom. Another benefit, of course, is that you can show up to class barefoot and in your pajamas if you so desire! The classes also had chat rooms available for group work assignments and that was a godsend. I wish I had that as an undergraduate, as well.

I think IMing can be a good way to answer reference questions. However, it is important that the reference librarian is not on the desk while he/she is doing virtual reference. It is not fair to the customer in front of the librarian, nor is it fair to the customer online, if they do not receive 100 percent of the librarian's attention. Virtual reference is wonderful for people who cannot get to the library. With a tool such as Answer Zone (or is it Ask a Librarian?) you can guide the customer to the sources online. Of course, there are downsides, as well. My experience with it was not very good because 1) I was on the reference desk when I was doing it 2) Very few people were using it at the time 3)When people did use it, the majority of them were asking circulation questions about their local library which was almost never the library at which I worked. I found myself looking up the phone number to the Fort Worth Public Library many times as I could not access Fort Worth library accounts to see what books were overdue! Additionally, there were pranks. Now that we have caller ID, kids tend to make prank IMs instead of prank phone calls.

When I signed up for a Gmail account a few years ago, I had my first experience with personal chatting. A few friends saw that I was online and started a chat. This happens sometimes on Facebook, as well. It's not that bad if you are not doing something else- but if you are in the middle of typing an email or uploading some pictures onto FB and someone says, "Hey, what's up?" and wants to chat it can be kind of annoying. I do realize that you can change your settings so that no one can tell if you are online or not, so that basically solves that problem. On the other hand, I think it would be excellent for talking to someone overseas rather than paying for international phone calls.

I have used the Office Communicator a few times. I find it to be a good way to tell if someone is "in a meeting", "offline", "away", or "available". However, I don't really see it as much different than sending and receiving email. I have heard that you can keep track of your conversations through it, and I can see how that would be beneficial. Also, I can see it being used for short meetings within different departments. I know staff are using it to send APBs, but I don't see the difference in that and sending a library-wide email. Either way, everyone gets the message immediately (unless, of course, they don't have their email up....).