Thing 7, Part 2 IM

Oh, how I love IM, let me count the ways:

1) shelf checks
2) staff location for today
3) hold transfers
4) brief discussions (can we meet tomorrow at 2?)
4) technical issues (are you down, too? is your wireless slow today?)
5) technical issue responses (we'll be up in 2 hours, I am about to restart the server, I will be over in ten minutes )
6) more shelf checks

I love my IM. As we use it now, between branches, I love being able to see who is out and about, and ask questions without the irritation of having the phone stuck to my head while on hold. I can help the next person in line, add more to my question or request, and refer back to the conversation once it is done. (Did she say hold that here or send it over?)

I don't know what kind of response we would get using IM as a reference access point. My thought is it would be great, but would require a lot of marketing to start. My guess is that homework help would be the main portion of the reference questions. That could be good, if we could do it within the time constraints the library is already open, without having our users feel like we weren't around when we needed them.

I think we should try it!