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.