#11 - IM, Anyone?

I am not a big fan of IM as a tool in my personal life - I much prefer texting. I can see, though, how teens and tweens would like it, especially having many IM windows open at the same time.


I have used IM (specifically MSN Messenger) for group projects while in library school - that was very helpful when deadlines approached and we had to figure out who was doing what, and what kind of editing needed to be done, etc. I liked that you could see if a person in your group was online at any given time, and you could connect with them.


In the library setting, I see IM as an extremely useful tool, if you're in a library that would FULLY support it. I experienced the use of IM for reference questions as part of an assignment for a class, and was really disappointed. This was online chat, which to me is the same thing. It was obvious the librarian at the other end was also helping patrons at her desk in addition to my queries. That caused a lot of delay in getting answers to my question, and the librarian didn't have software to let me know that she was still searching or doing whatever. So I felt left out in the cold; in fact a couple of times I typed "Are you still there?" I tried to use online chat through UNT as well for questions. There were times when no one was there during the posted 'chat' hours, or I experienced the same 'dead air' feeling during a chat. But I did like the times when the librarian could send me a link to a site through the chat, and I could also get a transcript emailed to me especially if there were instructions given during the conversations. This would be extremely helpful in a lot of reference interviews when patrons are trying to find out the steps to access information through a database or other online portal - typing out the steps is much quicker than writing them out by hand. And I have a lot of patrons that need this stuff in writing. And I'm a fast typist.

A lot of people like the anonymity of IM transactions, especially students who don't want to look stupid in a face to face experience, and this is where IM could really work its magic. But for IM to work in a library setting, the library has to support it as a dedicated system - when someone IMs the librarian, it has to be equivalent to the patron standing in front of that person and getting the librarian's full attention. And the librarian has to have a way to tell the patron that he/she is still working on the answer, eliminating the dead air and feeling that you have been abandoned. In this age of continual budget cuts, I am skeptical that this will occur any time soon.