So it might obvious from the dates on my recent posts that this blog has been undernourished lately. Considering all that’s going on at Hagerty Library this year, I’m lucky to do one posting per month! (Changes here will be the subject of another blog posting coming soon.) On the bright side, the benefit to you is I can batch the news and choose my words and instructions a bit more carefully.
My previous post was on new services. This one will focus on products. I’ll get up the outline first and then come backfill with more detailed instructions later. What I really enjoy sharing are anecdotes supplied by users who go ahead and experiment with the new toys. Feel free to email me any comments along those lines. The “comment” feature on this blog gets hit with so much robo-spam that real replies can get lost in the shuffle. But if you email, I’ll include them in an update. So… on with the show!
NEW PRODUCTS
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Instant Messaging:
Hagerty Library and your IST Librarian now offer browser-based instant messaging reference services using the Meebo widget, 9-5 weekdays. Why is this special? Because for anyone who just wants to ask a quick question, IM is perfect. Besides, according to an unscientific survey of teenaged acquaintances “email is for old people.” On my site, see the box on the far right hand side. No client or IM account needed on your end! Check it out!
To get your own Meebo account, and enjoy IM access across all other IM platforms, go to www.meebo.com. Just fyi – our Reference Desk service uses “Pigeon” – (formerly GAIM) on account of its nice features for capturing the “log files” of IM interactions with patrons, and storing them in one place on the departmental shared drive.
CRC Evening Office Hours
Your IST Librarian has begun holding office hours in the iSchool CRC from 5-6pm, one evening per week. The plan is to rotate between Tuesday’s, Wednesdays and Thursday’s. Monday’s I’m usually on the Reference Desk at Hagerty, and Friday’s… well let’s just say there’s other business to attend to. I’ll do my best to update my Twitter microblog as soon as my office hour plans are set for the next week. Thats the bit of text that shows up underneath my photo on all the Library Research Guides I edit – with the headline “Where’s Tim now?” Let me know if you think that page loads too slow with all these gadgets plugged in. I still consider all of this experimental and I may have to change things around if it bogs everything down.
What is Twitter? Aside from loads of hype about it helping to track friends via text messages, it also seems to be an easy way to update my webpage. And it keeps me to 140 characters!
As always, you are also welcome to contact me about scheduling a F2F or phone meeting for less serendipitous encounters!
Best,
Tim
