Setting up the Google Talk IM account went smoothly enough, I guess. I extended 2 invitations to chat. But since I'm doing this after 5:00 pm, I don't expect a response to my invitations until tomorrow.
In the meantime, without yet IMing, my guess is that the greatest advantage will be communicating with someone in "real time." Much like speaking on the telephone with someone. And I guess the advantage of IM over telephone is that with IM, there are no long distance charges or charges for minutes above & beyond one's cell phone plan.
The greatest disadvantage to IM I suspect will be that it works only if the party with which you wish to communicate happens to be online when you are. So, to me, it seems kind of random.
I might want to use IM in my personal life to communicate with my children, both of whom live out-of-state. So if we each happen to be logged into the same account at the same time, then we might be able to visit a bit. I admit that I'm skeptical, cuz, at this point, the phone just seems so much more convenient.
Professionally, I've read about libraries that use IM as part of their Reference services. So I guess one would have to have a link on the library website to the IM application. But again I retain some skepticism. What if I can't get to a person's inquiry at that moment? My reference desk is not in a private office where I can control interruptions. Instead, my desk is right out on the floor of the library. So patrons walk up to my desk all the time. Just because I'm typing away at my keyboard, the walk-up patron doesn't know that I'm involved in an IM session. I can imagine the frustration from both parties, in feeling neglected, overlooked, & unimportant.
If I were a patron & saw a link to IM with a reference librarian on my library's website, yes, I'd probably give it a try. But a lot would be riding on the kind of response I got from the other end. If it were a positive experience, sure, I'd be game to try it again. But if it was an unsatisfactory session, I'd probably not waste my time trying it again. I'd probably just call them on the phone instead.
But I've said all this before I've actually IMed with anyone. So at this point, I'm really just guessing. We'll see.
2 comments:
You're not alone when dealing with the issue of a walk-in patron thinking you're ignoring them while typing. Most libraries deal with this issue on a first-come first-served basis and politely explain to the walk-in patron that you're assisting an online patron. It's similar to asking a call-in patron to please hold while you help a walk-in patron.
You’ve really spent some time thinking about IM and noting both some of the positives and negatives aspects of it. One thing I didn’t see you mention was the ability of a patron to ask a question while remaining anonymous. If you were to put the Meebo Widget on your website then patrons could anonymously ask you a reference question. Knowing your patrons do you think they would like to ask a question and remain anonymous?
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