Enter the Meebo Bar. It’s a piece of javascript code that’s sits as a layer on top of a website.  This allows it to be on multiple pages so your widget is not just on your “ask a librarian” page or your homepage; it’s everywhere without taking up a bunch or room. In addition, it’s fully customizable so you can include your library’s Facebook page, posts from your Twitter stream, Flickr photos, YouTube videos, and more. Users can get help from a librarian and also connect with them on social media all from a single bar on any of the library’s pages.

For possible downsides, because it is all hosted on Meebo’s server it could be changed at anytime. They might decide one day to include ads on all their bars. Though I think their current model of opting into ads for a small cut of the revenue is working for them. But other than that it seems like it could be the next generation of service for libraries providing virtual reference to their members. I made a quick screencast demoing an example of what a library Meebo Bar could look like. If you want to play with one yourself, you can visit their website or see it in action over at Slate.

Is anyone currently using this? Would this be something that could be useful at your library?

Until now we just lived with it, but when I was writing my previous post on Pidgin I came across an article on LifeHacker.  It was about Pidgin, but in the comments a number of people discussed how they used a different program called Digsby to monitor their IM as well as social network accounts.  I downloaded it, tested it out for a couple of days and found it would likely work well for the library.

At the library we’ll probably only be using Digsby for IM to begin with, but I am pretty confident it will solve our problems.  When you’re offline, their IM widgets do not allow people to leave you offline messages.  Also, because the Digsby widgets and client is all one program (unlike our previous Meebo widgets and Pidgin chat client) it may be more stable.

We just implemented it on the library homepage so we’ll try it for a while.  Classes start Monday so we’ll see soon how well it works.

Now, if Meebo could add just a little more customization ability to its widgets, our IM reference would be right where I want it.  It is a little annoying that the widget says to leave an offline message.  When users do, they do not leave a way to contact them so there is no way to get back to them and answer their question.  Someday…

Advertising takes a lot of thought beforehand in order for your ads to be successful. Here are a few tips that I learned while I was creating an advertising campaign:

• Keep it simple (people have little time to read a bunch of text)
• Make it catchy (have something that gets the intended audiences attention)
• Keep your audience in mind
• Advertise where your audience is going to be (e.g. for students, put ads in common areas)

A good place to begin online with library advertising is Library Media and PR. They have a number of free logos and excellent tips to get your message out there.

The system is actually already being used.  We have probably gotten around five or six genuine questions through IM since the start of the semester last week.  A couple were missed, but by implementing a louder ringing sound for a notification I believe that most of the missed IMs will be solved.  I received my first question on Monday and it was pretty exciting.  It was an actual reference question about where were good places to find literary criticism.  I was able to help the patron and it probably took only about 2-3 minutes.  I am glad to see that this system will be successful and even more glad that it will be useful to patrons.

We may have to re-evaluate how we staff the service because one of the librarians was getting a bit overwhelmed while having to help two patrons at once (cyber-patron and meat-patron).  My plan is to have a meeting in a couple of weeks to ask how the librarians are adjusting to the service and to ask for any suggestions or concerns.  After that we can go fully live and publicize the snot out of it.  But I believe that regular reference meetings are going to be necessary to evaluate the IM service and what could be done to improve it.

I directed a staff training session today to familiarize everyone with IM-ing, buddy lists, and away messages. I had everyone sign up for Meebo accounts, add each other to their buddy lists, and then start chatting with one another. It worked well because people could joke about IM lingo and emoticons, but they also asked a number of good questions. By having them jump right into an IM setting and trying it out with each other they actually learned much more quickly than if I was simply up there lecturing. They quickly got the hang of buddies and how to send and receive messages. I recommend this form of training for anyone who is teaching others to IM. It gets results.

At the actual reference desk we will be using the IM client Pidgin because it has better alerts and is more customizable than the web-based Meebo.  So, I also plan on sending them some practice reference questions before the semester starts so they can become used to the Pidgin client. But they have the basics of IM down which was what I was trying to accomplish.

The training was not as easy to develop until I met with my “Library Instruction” practicum adviser earlier in the week.  Among other things, we eventually discussed “learning outcomes” which I had never heard of before. They are basically what you want your learners to be able to accomplish once they leave the classroom. This then made it much easier to design my training session. I simply took what I wanted the library staff to be able to do and then built my course around those goals. It sounds obvious but I hadn’t looked at it that way before.

After the training session our web librarian posted our Ask A Librarian page that we had worked on (mostly him) and our IM service was finally up and running. The web librarian and I posted our new status on the liswiki and the libsuccess wiki to include our names among the other distinguished virtual reference libraries. I am excited to see what kind of response we get. I will continue posting on how it works out.

I sounded surprisingly knowledgeable up there for one simple reason: I was knowledgeable. Jonathan and I had been working on this for about two months. He asked questions on some listservs and I scoured the web and library blogs for people that had done this before and tried to learn from their experiences. The sources I kept going back to and adapting to my own needs were: a PowerPoint slideshow called “How do you IM?” on the LibrarianInBlack blog, “IM me” by Aaron Schmidt and Michael Stephens, and the Online Reference Best Practices Wiki. They all were very helpful in getting me started. I find it is very useful to use other people’s knowledge. It saves you a lot of the leg work and allows you appear smart even though you are leeching off of these other people’s wisdom.

I demonstrated what the Pidgin software would look like as well as the Meebo chat window, and then we allayed any concerns and answered all the questions that came up. We helped the staff understand what we were actually going to be doing it and why. But I tried never to say that “this is how it is going to be.” I kept telling the staff that their input was needed . I do not want them to think they are getting this imposed on them. I would like to have them all contribute and share their opinions so it can be an effective service.

The meeting went very well, and I even got applause for my presentation. The next step will be staff training. This will begin after winter break since it is always hectic at the end of the semester. I might have to do a little research on how best to go about training staff and getting them comfortable with IM. This is going to be fun.

I thought it would be a big hit or at least a mild hit. I know if I was a reporter I would use it to contact the library. It is simple. I wouldn’t have to leave my desk. I wouldn’t have to stop what I was doing. It would be quicker than an e-mail. It would be great!

Unfortunately it hasn’t really caught on. It has been used a couple of times right away but now it is languishing. It is similar to watching your own child get picked last for the stickball team. Now, I am not going to complain about it not catching on. I will simply analyze why it is not popular yet.

It was only introduced about three and a half weeks ago so maybe people aren’t sure about it yet. Also many of the reporters are over 30 and may not be as comfortable with IM as, say, college students. In addition there was not much promotion of the new feature. It was displayed at a decently attended training session, but other than that it is simply sitting on the intranet page waiting for people to find it.

This is, as I see it, one of the main problems of librarianship: informing people that you have really useful services. Actually informing them isn’t that hard, getting them to understand is. People may attend a training session in which they learn that there is this new service that would be useful to them, but until they actually try it out they will not actually understand its usefulness. For example: I “know” that heroin is really addictive, but not having tried it I do not “understand” the concept. How then can we get people to understand the usefulness of library services? By getting them to try it and have a good experience with it. I tried this great soup the other day. I was wary about it because there was no meat in it, and Information Tyrannosaurs need their protein. But I had a great experience with it, so I’ll keep coming back for more.

How then can we get library patrons to try the soup? Well we can’t force it into their mouths, so our only option is to keep telling them that the soup is here and its really delicious. I in fact created a poster today touting the utility of this new IM feature on the local intranet. I cannot make people use my new feature. And if they try it a couple times and don’t find it useful I won’t care and I may have to reevaluate it. I can though, keep trying to alert them to new useful tools though…or at least until I am done with my practicum.

We finally decided on using Meebo because it has a number of excellent advantages. First, it is a cross-platform service and interacts with all the major IM providers including AIM, MSN, and Yahoo. Next, it is web based so users do not have to download any client software if they do not want to. Finally, it offers “Meebo Me” widgets, which are basically windows embedded into a browser page where you can type and get answers.

It is not without its problems though. It does not provide enough of an alert for monitoring it at the reference desk, unless all the librarians download Firefox (which they should have already, being Information Tyrannosaurs) and then download the Meebo add-on.

We were stumped on what to do for this until we came across a great blog post by Chad Boeninger. It shows you how to hack Meebo together with Pidgin, a piece of IM client software. Pidgin is pretty customizable and adaptable to your needs. It also has excellent options for monitoring IM conversations, so it seemed like the best option for us.

After creating all the IM accounts, testing, and working out all the bugs I think we are at a point where we can actually begin implementing it and rolling out a pilot project. We have a reference meeting after Thanksgiving where Jonathan and I will demonstrating how it works. I am excited to see the staff’s reactions to it.

This is what took up a great deal of my time when I started to implement IM reference at Edgewood. If one thinks only about the new technology and how cool it is, the project will fall flat. Something will be overlooked and you’ll be scrambling to fix it, or you’ll quickly turn patrons or staff off of the new technology.

The first thing I did was a Google search for literature about IM in libraries. I found a number of good resources that got me thinking including: IM Me, How do you IM?, Library Success, and the RUSA Virtual Reference Guide. I always find it helpful reviewing literature or blogs on a topic, because a lot of other people have done this already and have had some of the same problems you will have. You might as well benefit from other people’s knowledge and experience on the subject to make your own life easier.

Next, Jonathan and I started playing with the technology. I find it is always helpful to simply jump into the technology and start playing with it. Once you get in and mess around it is a lot easier to understand.

After we had a better understanding of what we were dealing with we gave our proposal to the head of reference. It gave some reasons about why we should do it, backed up with statistics. Then it addressed how the service would work including: technolgy, staffing, policies, training, promotion, and evaluation.

I also wrote up a draft that had some preliminary policies and best practices when IMing. We will be having a reference meeting on December 5th, and Jonathan and I will demonstrate it to the staff. We’ll do some training over winter break and roll out the pilot project starting in the spring semester.