[Web4lib] Re: IM reference time and trouble?

[B.G. Sloan]

  So that works out to almost (but not quite) one IM session per day for the year?
   
  Bernie Sloan

Brandee Crisp <bcrisp at park-ridge.lib.il.us> wrote:
  We haven't been using IM very long and haven't really done much advertising, but our young adult patrons seem to have embraced it. In the first 6 months with not much advertising, we have had 140 IM session for just the Young Adult department. Just over 180 IM messages total since July of this year. The Young Adult librarian is on approximately 10-20 hours per week, Reference staff is on at least 50-60 hours per week, and Children's staff tries to be online all the hours we are open. We have online status indicators, MeeboMe widgets for those without IM accounts and dozens of patrons who have added us as a Buddy. With little to no effort, I would call it a successful service.

Brandee Crisp

*********************************************************************
Opinions expressed are my own and may not reflect those of the Park Ridge Public Library.
               
Brandee Crisp
Reference Librarian
Park Ridge Public Library
20 S. Prospect
Park Ridge, IL 60068
(847) 825-3123, ext. 232 voice
(847) 825-0001 fax
bcrisp at prpl.org

IM us thru AIM or Yahoo at AskPRKRef !

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Message: 33
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 09:12:01 -0600
From: "Karen Harker" 
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] IM reference time and trouble?
To: "James Capobianco" , "Dan Lester"

Cc: web4lib at webjunction.org
Message-ID: <476A32C5.E20F.0013.0 at UTSouthwestern.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

I'm a bit baffled that libraries which have implemented chat or IM reference do not consider this on par with phone reference service. Many schedule the service to limited hours and "man" the chat/IM service like a separate reference desk. I see no significant difference between such service and phone reference. We do not limit the hours that we answer the phones; why do so for chat?



Karen R. Harker, MLS, MPH
UT Southwestern Medical Library
5323 Harry Hines Blvd.
Dallas, TX 75390-9049
214-648-8946
Yahoo IM: karenharker 

>>> On 12/20/07 at 3:19 AM, in message <481884074.20071220021947 at riverofdata.com>, Dan Lester wrote:
I guess I'm thinking of time and trouble to users, too.

You have to schedule someone to be monitoring it. It is only
available certain hours (as opposed to the international 24/7
systems). There is a limit to what can be conveyed via chat.

Users don't know when it will be available, even if you try to cover
certain times by schedule.

Of course I'm not totally sold on the "fancy systems" either. No, I
don't have a better alternative at the moment, but do hope we don't
get locked into doing some of these things "because we've always done
them" like we have with innumerable things over the decades.

I'll not start a litany of those.....

dan

Wednesday, December 19, 2007, 8:16:15 AM, you wrote:

> What kind of "time and trouble" do you believe IM reference adopters
> have to deal with?



-- 
The road goes on forever and the party never ends. REK, Jr. 
Dan Lester, Boise, ID 


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