Gia’s Weblog

Today we worked on the IM portion of our Web 2.0 assignment. Signing up and using it was pretty easy (we used Meebo). I’ve used IM before in a Library setting–we used MyWebLibrarian, a virtual reference service funded by the Illinois State Library. After some cursory searching it looks like MyWebLibrarian is no longer at that web address, so maybe Illinois has abandoned it or changed its name.

My experience with MWL wasn’t particularly a happy one, I have to admit. I was specifically assigned to the General Homework section. I can think of a few questions that were legit, and I was happy to be able to help the kids looking for answers. What I did NOT care for at all was the anonymity of the users. Let me just say that a large percentage of the questions were pranks and kids who wanted you to do their homework for them. It got to feel pretty abusive sometimes.

Do I think that IM can be useful for libraries? Absolutely. The experience I had with virtual reference was back in 2004-ish, so I assume its come a long way. I would be fine with doing it again if the user was identifiable in some way–like maybe they had to log in with a library card number. Also, I think it would be great to use in an inter-library communication device. Instead of calling a person at another library and reading out item numbers and patron numbers over the phone, you could just IM them without having to bother with a phone call.

I’d be interested in hearing from librarians/libraries who feel they’ve been successful implementing IM. Do they have registered users? Is this done off-desk, on-desk, or both?