Long IM Shifts (a tad whiny)

I don't know about anyone else but when I have an IM shift that lasts longer than 2 hours it drags on and on and.....

This is my four-hour shift today and already I've visited the little librarian's room twice, grabbed some delicious butter cookies for a snack, and drank all of my green tea. I still have an hour and a half left.

I think my optimal IM shift is 2 hours. Does anyone else have any feelings on this?

Online alarm clock for reminders

In case it helps anyone else, I've bookmarked an online alarm clock to remind me when my IM shift starts. It works great as long as I have the volume on.

Does anyone else feel like the students have less patience with the reference process through IM?

Also, sadly, I've missed a few IM opportunities because I was either away from the desk helping someone in person, or doing one of my "rounds," walking around the library to check on things. The built-in backup from the other ref desks makes chat better than IM in this respect.

Jeanel

New IM Jargon

What do you call a librarian who can't remember to log in for his IM shifts?

alzheIMer

3 (THREE!) IMs

Y'all, I just had three IMs between the hour of 8:30 and 9:30! I felt like I was back at UT for awhile there. Phew!

IM Late, IM Late!

I've only had a few IM sessions so far, but I'm only on duty 3 hours a week. My main issue (and it's totally me) is that I can't seem to remember to sign on at the right time. I'm getting better, but it's been pretty bad.

I just want to tell everyone how grateful I am to everyone that has been flexible about shifts and to all the folks that have been patient with me showing up late. I think this is a great service -- cheap and something students use. There is no reason why we should not be doing this.

My thanks to the IM team for all their hard work getting this going!

Now they have no excuse

I have seen nothing but good reactions when telling students they can IM the library (they seem amazed and then impressed). I've also had instructors tell me that now they can get serious about demanding that their students get good sources because "they don't have any more excuses not to contact to the library". So this service might just influence what is expected from students when turning in assignments!

Invisible Ink

I had an IM where the student couldn't see my responses. I could see his and he said he could see the notice that I was typing but did not see my text. He tried from two different Yahoo IM accounts. Eventually he just said he thought he had solved the problem (who know what he was referring to?) and exited. He said he was using a Mac. Hopefully a one-off event.

IM in the library (no, really, IN the library!)

Angelica had an interesting experience this morning. While handling an IM question at the reference desk at EVC, she realized the student was IMing from the Riverside library. Once I saw someone do this with chat, and I know from IP addresses showing in LivePerson that people from outside the library, but on campus.

Has anyone else had this experience with IM yet? My gut reaction would be to tell them to ask for help locally -- it would be faster -- but I don't want to put people off who, for whatever reason, don't want to talk to a live human being. I know I'VE been there!

Any thoughts or ideas about this phenomenon?

In your office v. At the Reference desk

Again, mainly for the full time volunteers. I promise to eventually have some words of wisdom to pass along to everyone. :) I encourage the adjunct volunteers to add their thoughts and opinions to my post because they always do IM at the reference desk and might have some words of wisdom of their own to share.

Since I've asked several people lately if they prefer to have their IM shifts when they're on the desk or in their office, I thought I would post my thoughts about it. Personally, I prefer having my IM shifts while I'm on the reference desk.

Here's why:

1. While I'm in my office, I have a tendency to get involved with work and leave my office to take care of various things. If I'm in the middle of an IM shift, I'm basically chained to my desk. If I'm at the reference desk I'm already expecting to stay there, or at least close to it.

2. It is very easy to leave your office for a brief time and get stopped by someone to talk or for help. If you're at the reference desk, you can still have that conversation and be close enough to hear if someone sends an IM. That way you can at least excuse yourself for a moment to let the individual on IM know that you'll be right with them.

3. You might be worried that it will be too busy to do IM and reference at the same time. Not so. With the exception of the first week, and maybe around mid-terms and finals, there are times when we're almost begging the students to ask questions. :) At least with IM that's one more way for students to ask something.

4. You might be worried about being the only one doing IM and having in-library questions AND monitoring LivePerson. Don't panic. There are other librarians to help with LivePerson, and just like when you're chatting, don't hesitate to ask the person you're IMing with to hold on a moment while you help the person in the library.

If I think of any other reasons I prefer IM at the reference desk instead of in my office, I'll include them.

IMing while using Remote Desktop

This is mainly for the FT IM volunteers.

When connecting to your computer through Remote Desktop at the reference desk, I thought you weren't able to hear an IM coming through if you had the remote window minimized and were working on the reference computer. I was wrong. Maybe I just didn't have the volume turned up enough, or maybe the Ref desk computer had the sound muted and I didn't notice, but I just tested it and was able to hear the "incoming" sound loud and clear.

If you turn the volume up loud enough and make sure neither computer is muted, you can still monitor incoming messages. It may seem like an obvious thing, but it wasn't to me so I wanted to pass along the tip.

Please send statistics!!

We need statistics for our trial. We have adapted two versions of our reference statistics sheets for the IM trial. Please choose the version that best suits your purposes. The first form is exactly like the one at the reference desk /except/ it has the option of using “M: IM request”. We think it’s best for the librarians who plan to IM from the reference desk along with other campus librarians. The second form is a shorter version and can be used individually in your office or at the reference desk.

1^st form: http://insideirt.austincc.edu/library/docs/forms/IM-ref-stat-2pg.xls

2^nd form: http://insideirt.austincc.edu/library/docs/forms/IM-ref-stat-abbr-2pg.xls

I've only had one IM.

Week 3

It's week three - I've had two chats so far. How about you? Have you been sending your statistics to Melinda? The statistics form will be available in the list of resources off to the left of the page if you need it again. (Lola, Melinda - Is that available online somewhere?)

What questions have you had that you had to come to a person for help? Even if you've already gotten your answer, please ask it again here in the comments so we can update the training materials. We want to make this as smooth as possible when we start introducing it to more librarians.

Questions, comments, concerns? Reflections? Please let us know how you're feeling about the program. Are you comfortable on meebo? How are shift changes working for you? Do you like working in your office or out at the desk? How are students responding? What problems are you having? If you don't want to write your own post, just email your comments to me, Melinda, or Lola and we can post them for you. (Or not, if you have something you'd like to tell us, but otherwise keep private.)

We have some fancy new bookmarks promoting IM coming our way soon to help us publicize.

Thanks again for all you do!

-Ellie

Multitasking Tip

Have a bunch of things open and worried about missing an IM? Keep meebo open in a separate browser window and you'll see it blink at the bottom of your screen when someone IMs you.

Your meebo account

Just discovered that there might have been a miscommunication about adding accounts to your personal meebo logon due to this image.



It might make it seem like you need to add all of the acclibrarian accounts to your accls meebo account, but you should not. When you're adding other accounts to your meebo account, only add your personal accounts, do not add acclibrarian, otherwise you'll bump off the person signed on for their IM shift whenever you log on to your personal account.

If you've added acclibrarian, please remove it from your accounts list. The instructions for adding an account on the IM training page will help with this. http://insideirt.austincc.edu/library/sd/IM/IMtutorial.html#meeboaccount
The section for deleting accounts is at the very bottom.

If you have added the accounts, or you're not sure if you have, make sure you wait until your next IM shift to change it or check, otherwise you'll still have the problem of bumping the other person off.

Remember to check in first

I was logged in to the acclibrarian meebo account today and got a message from aol instant messenger telling me I was signed in two places. I signed out of the acclibrarian meebo account assuming it was the next person taking over her shift. Then I went to IM her to remind her to check first next time in case I was with a student, which I wasn't, so no harm done. But then it turns out she didn't get my IM to the aol screen name. She signed out and in and everything was fine.

So this is a reminder to make sure the last shift has signed out before you sign in for your shift to make the swap go as smoothly as possible.

Thanks!

Meebo Sidebar

I've found comfort in using Meebo as a sidebar to Firefox. The switching back-n-forth between screens caused a little anxiety for me. The images are blurred but you can see how I'm using it at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhmdg2tn_4dnxj5c

I agree with the "flaky" part

Last night when I was signed in as acclibrarian, Meebo told me acclibrarian signed in from an AIM account from somewhere else. Meebo kicked me off, but I signed back on and everything went smoothly after that. Maybe it was an AIM issue . . .

(And when it says "posted by ren" that's me, Karen.)

Meebo, thou art flaky

I don't know if it is meebo or the server but I've had two network interruptions. Now meebo is having problems logging into GoogleTalk. I tried signing off of meebo and then signing back on. But 2 seconds after signing on I got an error messge.

I've tried using the "sign on" option under the gmail screen name but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It looks like it has let me sign on. For now....

Lag time

I've noticed that when I sign on to two different meebo accounts in Firefox, it can increase lag time.

I discovered this when clicking on Account or Preferences, or even sign off, and it would take several seconds for the window to open. When I sent test IMs to myself and to the acclibrarian account, the lag was a problem there as well. Yesterday, I tried logging in to one account through Firefox and the other through Internet Explorer, and I didn't seem to have a problem.

If you're noticing the same problem with lag time when you're signed on to both your personal IM account and the acclibrarian account in Firefox, try using Firefox and IE and hopefully it will fix it.

Day 2

Thanks again to all our volunteers! I just wanted to remind everyone to add anyone you chat with to the buddy list. That is the only way to save that person's transcripts.

I noticed when I signed on for my shift today an old question popped up from a yahoo user. I replied but she said she had already been helped. Not sure what was going on there....