[Publib] Re: using IM for reference

[Andy Barnett]

We have been offereing IM reference for about six months. We are promoting 
it by listing it with our email reference service on our web site.

Downside -  it will be busiest when you are busiest. Thus, we get teens on 
after school, when the library is full of their classmates. Plus, they want 
to just chat and say hello, while you are answering a phone and fixing the 
photocopier. Upside - easy to experiment with, since use will grow slowly.

Since security considerations limited us in adding software to our PCs, we 
are using Meebo <www.meebo.com>  which is *free*, aggregates Yahoo/MS and 
AOL messengers on one page and is web based. It beeps at us to let us know 
someone is incoming. Check our page at
http://www.mcmillanlibrary.org/library/askmcm.html

Andy Barnett, Asst. Director				www.mcmillanlibrary.org
McMillan Memorial Library
490 East Grand Ave.						715-423-5144 (phone)
Wisconsin Rapids, WI  54494					715-423-2665 (fax)
	
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
      -  Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929 - 1968