Meebo

I was really excited to learn about Meebo. I have been wanting to add instant messaging to my computer at home so that I can communicate with a friend who lives several time zones away from me each time I've noticed she's been on the computer already (thanks Myspace!). But, I hate downloading tons of programs onto my computer. Now I'll be interested to see if we'll actually be able to communicate during times that we're both online.

As for work uses, I could see something like this being used by patrons if it were easily accessible on our website. The concerns I would have would revolve around staffing -- on light duty hours it would be fine for someone to be keeping an eye on the account while working regular reference. But, other than on Easter, there's very few known quantity reference hours. Plus, it would be hard to answer questions electronically when patrons came up in person. Therefore, staffing would need to be done off desk which then begs the question, what would staff be doing in between questions or during dull hours.

I could see it becoming connected to Telephone Reference since, for many, it is so similar to picking up the phone to ask a question. I would think many of the drawbacks would be similar to telephone reference such as patrons expecting the staff member to have the information right at their fingertips and having a harder time waiting for the necessary research to be done.