Since January 6, I have had a total of eleven IM sessions with business students. Of these , nine were basically your run-of-the-mill reference questions. Most had questions about industry ratios, market shares, or SWOT analyses. However, the last two interactions were a little more unique. The first encounter occurred last Thursday. The question started... Continue Reading →
Repeat IM Customer
I had another IM reference interaction tonight. The really cool thing about this particular interaction is that it was someone who had IMed me about a month ago. While business is a little slow, it's nice to know that I am at least getting repeat customers. I first put my IM profiles on my contact... Continue Reading →
Inspirational IM Success Stories
Sarah at Librarian in Black and Michael at Tame The Web have both posted some updates on their libraries' Instant Messaging reference programs. Both services seem to be returning excellent numbers and are excellent examples of reaching out to the patrons. Both libraries are supporting the big three clients (AIM, Yahoo! IM, and MSN Messenger),... Continue Reading →
Blogging and Internal Communications
Steven Cohen and Meredith Farkas have recently posted about using blogs for internal communications. At my library, we use a blog to disseminate library news, and I have a blog that I use to complement my library instruction, reference, and liaison activities. Both blogs are primarily used to communicate information to the library's public users.... Continue Reading →
What Libraries Are Doing With Blogs
blogwithoutalibrary.net has a really nice collection of libraries that are doing cool things with blogs. It's definitely worth checking out for ideas if you are looking to get your library blogging. Also worth a look if your blog has gotten a little stale and you're looking for some fresh ideas. It's good to see that... Continue Reading →
First IM Reference Interaction
Today I had my first reference interaction using AOL IM. My library has been doing chat reference for quite some time, and we are available for about ten hours on most weekdays. Our business is good, and we are able to help quite a few students with library research. We have about twelve people who... Continue Reading →