I observed staff at Central during an IM session. A question actually came in from one of the Learning 2.o students, so it was interesting to see how the staff actually respond to the questions! I asked about the type of questions that come in, some questions have been: are you a person or a computer ; questions about holds ; asking if we have a certain title ; hours we are open - they are the usual ones. There have been some more involved questions that some colleagues have handled. The volume of questions seems to be low at this point. Whether it is because of the need for more advertising of the service, or just customers not wanting to use it remains to be seen. The staff were very positive about the IM service, especially since it is a chance to reach the high school and college students with information services tailored to their information technology - definitely they want to keep it! I asked about the differences between IM and telephone reference the responses: reference staff is trained extensively in reference interview techniques and IM does not lend itself to reference interviewing -- the person asking the question wants the information NOW. That sometimes makes for a pressured feeling, having to find information in a hurry and type fast to get the answer back quickly, but it is a challenge that the reference staff are adapting to. They would agree that IM should be here to stay!!
IM
Instant Messaging
Libraries
IM Reference Interviews
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