Caleb Tucker-Raymond, presenter
This presentation assumes three things – 1) public service is essential to every library’s mission, 2) the choices for remote contact are proliferating, and 3) we prefer not to outsource our services and even the ones we purchase we provide to the users without charge.
In order to allow users to access reference services from any technology and simultaneously reduce the library’s investment in and the librarians’ having to learn a multiplicity of tools, Caleb developed a model for providing a black box that would interpret these various technologies into a single interface for the librarians. H e quickly learned of the Carolina service where they use an XMPP server (apparently Jabber based) to do this translation.
Caleb then discussed basic issues to be considered – faced-to-face interaction seems still to be the best way of providing service (users respond best to the person, not the technology). Some principles to keep in mind – understand the culture of the library’s users, ask Do we need to do this technology at all, and ask May we control privacy instead of protecting it?
At the minimum – remember that email is still a primary form of communication, and, consider the possibility of putting the IM link into the catalog’s ‘not found’ pages.
