Instant Messaging: "What is it? Like a chat room or something?"
Umm, kind of. Instant Messaging (IM) is a form of real time online
communication usually in a closed/private chat between two people. That
is, I type "hey whazzup" to my friend in Wales and seconds later she
receives that message on her computer. At this point she can choose to
respond in kind ("howdy friend") or to promptly ignore me. Like e-mail
the message only goes to the user who you’ve chosen to send it to and
no one else. However, if you would like to get a group of people in on
the conversation most IM services offer a group chat function.
"Well," you might ask yourself, "what good is Instant Messaging to a
library then?" In fact, it can be an extremely useful and flexible
addition to any library’s tool belt. For example, Instant
Messaging allows for quick and easy exchanges with co-workers—more
casual than an email, less work than a phone call and great for communicating between branches. Perhaps there is
a patron giving you some guff and you want to covertly warn a co-worker
in their flight path. Instant Messaging would probably be the best tool
for the job. Another really cool thing about Instant Messaging is how
easily it can be used as a virtual reference tool. Simply by
advertising a screen name or embedding a ‘meebo me!’ (explanation
below) widget in the library’s website you’ve provided the public with
another access point for reference help. For example, imagine a wayward
youth working frantically on a research paper that’s due the next day!
All is going well until…OH NO! Wikipedia doesn’t have the answer!
"Who else might be able to help me?" she thinks. "Perhaps a librarian?
But I can’t get to the library today…hmm…" She quickly surfs to the
local public library’s website and discovers that there is a reference
librarian available to chat. "COOL!" she exclaims. Being wayward and
all, this youth as an active IM’er promptly adds her local librarian as
a "buddy" on her IM program, starts a chat session with the librarian,
and the question is answered in minutes. Our youth goes on to write a
glorious paper and become president. Fin.
One other important thing to note. At present you can only chat with
people who use the same IM service as you do. That is, if you are using
AOL Instant Messenger you can only chat with someone who is also using
AOL Instant Messenger. There are however several programs that allow
you to be logged into different types of IM accounts simultaneously. A
few examples of these programs are Meebo, Trillian, and Adium
for Mac users. Of these three, Meebo is particularly interesting for a
couple of reasons. The first is simply because it does not require the
user to download any software and therefore can be easily used from any
computer. The second is that it has a nifty little feature called
"meebo me!". Meebo me! is an embeddable IM window you can easily add to
any personal webpage. This allows any visitor to a page using meebo me!
to chat with the person logged into the attached meebo account. Pretty
cool, eh?
Class Resources
Below are links to the web-based versions of four of the most
widely-used IM services. From these links you can set up your own
Screen Name (SN) and even use your chosen IM service online without
downloading any software to your computer.
Also, take a look at some of these libraries using embedded chat, like the meebo me! widget, for virtual reference.
- Yale University Science Libraries
- Chambers County Library
- Clinton-Macomb Public Library
- WPI George C. Gordon Library
- Charleston County Public Library
Class Assignment
Your assignment is as follows:
- Set up an account with any or all of the above mentioned IM services. IWhen doing so choose your screen name wisely. It will come to be your identity in the IM’ing world, and you will be at the mercy of your peers — I can do nothing to save you from them.
- Try it out! Post your screen name and which service you chose right here in the comments section. If you’re feeling adventurous or aren’t able to download programs to your computer I recommend setting up a Meebo account. My screen names are listed in the upper left corner of the page, and I hope to hear from all of you at least once by the end of the week!
- Comment about your experience.
Extra Credit
- Online Reference – Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki
- Wikipedia on Instant Messaging
- IM=FASTER virtual reference on the cheap!
- Web-based chat vs. instant messaging: who wins?
If you have any questions, try getting a hold of me via the meebo
me! widget below. I am almost always signed in, but there may be a bit of a wait if I’m the middle of helping patrons. Please let me know WHO you are when sending a message. Thanks!
Anna, I just received your IMessaging. So I believe I finally figured it out. My address is [email protected] or [email protected]. This has been a challenge; but I learned a lot! I am not able to use this at school. We have our own district IM and use it quite often. However, I have just sent my daughter and father an IM to test my new skill. Thanks for your support. I DID IT!!!! Nancy Christensen
I’m quite used to using IM as I use it all the time on facebook with frieds. I did sign up for a new yahoo account, where I am known as iandaroma, although I doubt that I will use that one very much.
I use gmail to chat with a couple friends and I also set up a Meebo for the assignment. My Meebo user name is ldfblvsbks. I can see several good uses for this, especially in a spread out work environment but it would require buy in from all involved.
I’ve used various IM services for quite awhile but am glad to know about Meebo. We are a very small library and I giggled at the suggestion of IM to your workmate about an angry patron coming their way…we and all the other patrons know exactly what each other is thinking due to cabin feverish conditions in our tiny space. Keeps you honest anyway! My grown children and I IM as often as we can. It’s been my Godsend for sanity while they have been away from us attending school or living elsewhere. I love it when patrons from foreign countries come in and ‘chat’ with relatives back home.
Thanks for the info. about the Firefox alert of Meebo activity.
[email protected]
You will need to create an account through each service if you wish to communicate with people who use that service. To talk to AIM users you’ll need an AIM account, to talk to Yahoo users you’ll need a Yahoo account and so on. What meebo does to help with this is it puts all those contacts in one place. Instead of having 3 or 4 different IM clients downloaded on your computer and having to remember to sign into each one, you can create the accounts online with no downloading and then tell meebo to sign you into all of them automatically when you sign into meebo. Then you’ll only have to remember one log in. Does that make sense?
I set up a Google Talk account as Lamont. Still im’ing my daughter and using it every day.I thought I had lost in one day but I just needed to update Adobe and it’s up again. Checked out the extra-credit sites and found many others with basically the same message.
Thanks, Anna, for clarifying the different im accounts and how meebo deals with that. I’m still not sure if I have told meebo to recognize my yahoo account, and I don’t know if I will ever use that one, but I’ll look into it.
Meanwhile, I can see potential for this as Becky put it, to send a message when a staff member is on the phone and you want to drop a quick line. We are so spread out here, perhaps it could save a few trips up and down stairs. While I appreciate the exercise, sometimes it gets to be enough!
Anna, I was able to get to the spot where I could send an IM. I sent it last night; but I think you were not available. I went through yahoo and sent the message. It came back telling me it was undeliverable. I will try again after school. I’m not sure I’m getting any closer with this assignment.
I have a Yahoo IM account, user name misd1. I used to use it a lot, but not everyone has a yahoo account. Oh well. . . .
I set up a yahoo account and then also a Meebo account. I don’t know who I have to IM since I am the one and only in this library. I have been trying to set up with my daughter in law so maybe this will help. This was definitely easier than the last two lessons. Just hope it works.
[email protected] is the yahoo acct.
I routinely message at work to our branch and with other coworkers in-house. I have set up yahoo and google message accounts. I use both places for email. I have invited some SPLAT classmates and hope to have a response. Here is to practicing IM’ing.
I set up a Yahoo IM account. My user name is reginthecat.
I created a Google Talk account and MSN account. I got mixed up as I followed the instructions to set up a “MEEBO”- got totally messed up. Hope to figure it all out- like what is MEEBO anyway?
My user name for both accounts: [email protected]
Set up account and IM’d with coworker. Since we sit right next to each other it would have been faster to carry on a face to face conversation and I will not be using this as a way to communicate. No time.
Hey Nancy! Hooray!! I’m so glad that it finally worked for you! Your persistence was awesome. 🙂
I set up the meebo account then went back and set up a yahoo account because the person I im’d with said I was offline (even though we could still communicate) Now I have two yahoo e-mail accounts very similar to one another: [email protected] and [email protected]
Question: Do we have to have im accounts elsewhere, or would the meebo account be sufficient?
I did a lot of IMing during my library masters program, which was mostly online, so it was a great way to chat with classmates about assignments, frustrations, or personal news. I haven’t IM’d much since then. I’ve just signed up for Meebo, but I keep getting interrupted here at work, so I’m going to mess with it some more at home where I can concentrate and really try things out. Meanwhile, I’m still experimenting with my blog and RSS reader from the past couple weeks. I am on Google Talk as bookhouseboy99, and MSN Messenger as [email protected].
I set up an account with yahoo. My ID is [email protected] if anyone is interested. The most difficult thing about signing up is trying to pick an ID that isn’t already taken. I probably won’t use it much as we use facebook here to communicate between desks.
I’ve setup a Meebo account and Google Talk. My google talk account is buttarsj.
Sorry to report that our district blocks IM sites. We tried Meebo, Yahoo, Google talk, AIM and they were all blocked. I really don’t want to set up a hotmail account because I know the students that try and use it at school have problems.
Hi everyone!
I am now on ymail at [email protected]
I am at hotmail at [email protected]
My ID on meebo is libraryguy72
Woohoo!!!!
Ezequiel Luna
Ok, it took me a while but I am on Meebo. I had a problem where I right clicked on something and all of my icons went away. (It is ok now it was a computer setting). Thanks to Anna for helping me figure out what the problem was. I can see when this might become useful, but a telephone or email is just easier. I will keep trying. I believe it would be useful when trying to reach someone who is already on the phone or if you just need to drop them a note and you are at home… It has potential!
I’ve been IMing since the beginning of time. I’ve got MSN, I’ve had it so long that I can never remember my user name. I think it is [email protected]. My user name changes with the updates. Gmail is [email protected] and Yahoo which I never use I won’t give because I don’t use it anymore.
Hey Sara! Glad to hear Meebo is going well for you. If you use Firefox as your web browser you can make Meebo alerts work even better – you’ll get a popup when you get a message and when the browser is minimized it’ll flash orange to alert you of activity. You can also set it to log you in automatically when you open your browser. To get it just go to Tools, then Add-ons, then Get Add-ons and type meebo.
This was fun. I signed up with GoogleTalk since I already have Google account. My screen name is Librarycacher. Hope this works.
I’m really enjoying the all-in-one aspect of Meebo. I do wish it had a better alert system, but then again, I haven’t played around with the settings much yet.
The nice thing about IM is the casual nature and the clutter-free interface. I hate having to process a packed email inbox, so this cuts down on the digital clutter for me. Plus, it keeps the phone lines (and staff) more easily available on the phones for patrons.
I do recommend turning off the sound if possible. At a former telecommuting job, we used MSN Messenger to communicate, and I still heard phantom “dings” that would quicken my pulse for months after leaving the company. 🙂
So, Meebo is kind of like RSS for IM, then??
Hi Bill! Sorry to hear that all the IM sites are blocked. You may have already tried it, and there’s a good chance it won’t work, but have you tried to access meebo through this address: https://www.meebo.com? The difference between http and https might make a difference.
https is also blocked. Thanks for the suggestion.
I already had an msn account (I also had yahoo and aol, but I have never used them and don’t remember what they are)I set up a Meebo account and invited a friend or two do the same.
Hi all – I’ve set up a Meebo account. My user name is seniorlib51.