The GTA Blog @ Penrose Library

This is the true story of a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the Penrose Library, University of Denver.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Meebo and Web Messengers

As I was researching other libraries that IM at libsucess.org, I came across Meebo (www.meebo.com), which " is a web based IM that lets you log into your IM networks from any computer with a browser and internet connection with no firewall issues. It employs technologies like (AJAX) to make it act more like a desktop application, which dramatically improves usability." (from wiki.meebo.com ) It is similar to Trillian, because it allows you to manage multiple IM accounts at the same time.

The real potential for Meebo in IM reference lies in the fact that it allows users who are at computers where they cannot install IM software to use their own accounts. I know that there are web messenger services where users can access their own accounts:Yahoo web messenger, AOL web messenger, MSN web messenger.

The advantage to Meebo is that users can sign in to however many accounts they want, as well as the fact that the website is easier to remember. Despite the obvious coolness of Meebo, it seems pretty new and untested. On top of that I have no idea how many students have multiple IM accounts. Still, it is an option.

I wasn't able to find the library that suggested Meebo to its' students. That was browsing incident I was not able to re-create. In any case, Meebo is an interesting piece of webware that could be useful for our IM program.



An Aside:
As far as using the web messenger services,as well as something like Meebo, the Bracken Health Sciences Library at Queen's University has a fantastic advisory message:

"If you have an instant messaging or email account with one of the systems above, you can quickly send us a message by clicking on the user name or online status indicator (only if you have your instant messaging software open and you are logged in). Otherwise, you can IM us as you would any other person by logging in to your instant messaging software and account and "addressing" an instant message to the appropriate user name above. If you do not have the software installed on the computer you are using right now but you have an IM account, you can use the following online IM services: AIM Express, MSN Web Messenger, or Yahoo Web Messenger."

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IM reference timeline

After conversing with Chris, it looks like we will be testing Trillian for a while before we make a pitch to the reference staff. That will most likely happen in '07. FYI.

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sound advice redux

As afar as IM in libraries, I found a "best practices" type of article that goes over the ins and outs of chat reference pretty well. It is “The Chat Reference Interview: Practicalities and Advice.” Bobrowsky,Tammy, Lynne Beck, and Malaika Grant. Published in The Reference Librarian (The Haworth Information
Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) No. 89/90, 2005, pp. 179-191. There is online access to it through the publisher in PEAK.

some highlights:
-keep messages brief
-use elipses and other punctuation to express yourself, avoid "emoticons."
-alleviate tension between the desire for brevity and speed and the desire to provide instruction by breaking instruction into steps, or reffering to outside sources, or to another medium (i.e. face-to-face).
-Disconnections happen. It's not you.

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Monday, September 18, 2006

sound advice

I stumbled across this blog entry from LBR, which is a virtual reference blog. it looks like there's been some back and forth between him and a few other bloggers, but what it really comes down to is using common sense in assuming that patrons are already pretty saavy, but you have to do a whole reference interview anyway. Retreiving articles from liscenced sources was a point of contention for the thread, but if our IM reference questions are coming from DU students, there's not much of a conflict as there would have been if we were still using AskColorado.

A related thought.
In Joseph Janes' book, Introduction to Reference Work in the Digital Age, there was a lot of to-do about "evaporating patrons" (139) in email and IM. Like everything else it seems to come down to comfort with email and IM etiquette. Which is the same as etiquette in general.

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Thursday, September 14, 2006

....and start.....

I spent most of my day doing one of two things: researching IM reference in the databases (emerald, LISTA), and downloading Trillian , a multi-service instant messaging provider. Looking at other libraries that do IM reference, it seems like most of them use Trillian.

Considering how popular IM is , it's not suprising that so many prefer a multi-service approach, even though a majority of IM users stay with AOL.

In any case, I have these links up at del.icio.us/DUrefGTA.

More Later.

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