Losing Sleep » Instant Messaging http://crios.info Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:53:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 IM Reference Interview. http://crios.info/2007/10/16/im-reference-interview/ http://crios.info/2007/10/16/im-reference-interview/#comments Wed, 17 Oct 2007 02:54:35 +0000 Chris http://crios.info/2007/10/16/im-reference-interview/ I conducted my IM interview last week and found the library through the Library Success wiki – Libraries Using IM Reference page. It was about 6 at night so I decided to go West coast so they would have plenty of time. I picked Los Gatos Public Library which happened to be serendipitous because the librarian (Henry Bankhead, Principal Librarian) was quite the library 2.0 advocate and experimenter. I had a list of IM ref questions all prepared but I found that the most interesting conversation was about other L2 things. It turns out that Los Gatos Public Library uses LibraryThing for Libraries. LibraryThing for Libraries is a service provided by LibraryThing that allows libraries to add Web 2.0 content, such as tags and recommendations (from LibraryThing) to their catalogs. Catalog plugins are available for all sorts of OPACs and I’m hoping that maybe my work would be interested in experimenting with some L2 content.

Something else that I found interesting is that LGPL has terminals over desktops for their public workstations. Henry seemed to think that it was cheaper than desktops but was less flexible for the patron. I didn’t even know that libraries still used terminals over desktops.

All in all it was a good chat and I learned some fun and interesting things. I’m really hoping that I can mess around with LT for Libraries. Whether the kids would actually use the content provided is another story, but it might come in handy anyway.

I wish I could visit Las Gatos Public Library. It sounds like a great library that is open to change and innovation. Henry Bankhead was great. I highly recommend him for any of your reference needs. The only negative thing that resulted from this chat is that I again realized the depth of my frustration with Chicago Public Library.

IM Interview

Questions:

  • Do you get many IM questions?
  • How long has your library had IM reference?
  • Who started IM reference?
  • Did you have a hard time implementing it?
  • How did you go about implementing it?
  • How did the IT department react to the idea?
  • How big is your library?
  • How many IM reference questions do you get per shift (roughly?)
    • How about email reference?
  • What is your workflow like?
  • Which patrons get preference?
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