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November 22, 2004
400 IM Reference Queries in 7 months...
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A fellow library blogger, Aaron Schmidt, is gracing the pages of the November 15th Library Journal with his library's IM stats (see left). Rawr! |
November 22, 2004 | Permalink
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» Libraries that IM--Including MPOW from Free Range Librarian
How great to see IM on the cover of LJ, by way of Librarianinblack, and go Aaron! As for the commenter who said she would be the devil's advocate, then questioned IM because it was "only" 400 IMs in a... [Read More]
Tracked on Nov 24, 2004 7:58:13 AM
Comments
This is where I play devil's advocate: 400 IM queries over 7 months averages out to about 2 per day. Is it worth a staff person monitoring a computer 5 hours a day on the off chance someone will IM the library?
From what I can tell of the set-up at Thomas Ford, it does look fairly practical. IM reference is available 30 hours per week and it uses AOL IM, so they aren't paying for that, just for the staff time involved, and presumably that staff person would be using the computer anyways. It's great in terms of building for the future. So really, I don't so much have a problem with their program as the addition of avenues of reference to monitor on the off chance it might get used...
Any thoughts?
Posted by: Meg | November23, 2004
Meg,
Good thoughts for sure, advocating for the devil is good.
I will tell you though that there's not too much staff time incurred by monitoring IM. I'm usually in front of a computer at work and I have IM running anyways. We haven't scheduled anyone to stare at a computer and pray for a virtual patron. I hope it gets to the point where we get enough patrons contacting us via IM that we are forced to do that though. So the only staff time spent is answering questions. I will need to spend some time getting Trillian working how I would like it to on two or three computers when the service expands a bit, but it won't be that big of a deal.
Interestingly, we *do* schedule distinct time for monitoring the virtual reference desk of the collaberative VR project of which we're a part. Transactions with this project can be rapid or far and few between, which leaves me waiting for patrons. It could be that this waiting time is a blessing in disguise because i can catch up on other tasks.
There's no doubt in my mind that IM give more bang for the buck (actually dollars spent and staff time) than bloaty, buggy VR software.
Posted by: Aaron | November23, 2004
As someone who staffs an official virtual reference service for set hours each week, I would agree that it is very frustrating to sit at your desk, waiting for a patron to ask a question.
We're just getting ready at my library to set up an IM Reference service (all pending administrative approval of course), and we've set 10 hours per week (3-5pm M-F) as times we will definitely be on. And then added the caveat of "we may be on other times too, so go ahead and check!"
My thinking was that by scheduling some hours immediately after school, we would be a stable source of homework help, but if we're on at other times the kids can take advantage of that too. And if they add the library to their buddy list (as some of Aaron's patrons have done), then they'll know the second we log on.
Posted by: Sarah Houghton (Librarian in Black) | November23, 2004
See, now both Aaron's setup and your suggested setup sound reasonable to staff and inexpensive. Lord, I hope more virtual reference setups switch to IM setups like yours.
Posted by: Meg | November24, 2004
