Thing 7. Communication Tools

Lots of things to consider in this topic. One, IM, makes me think back to when my library tried chat reference. It was a dismal failure, for many reasons: the application was clunky and slow, often losing patrons and making give-and-take communication impossible (a bit hard to do a reference interview), there were no parameters for the type of questions that could be best answered, subject expertise was required across many areas and, unfortunately, forwarding questions was hard to do. And it was a concept dead on its feet before it started: I mean, c'mon, chatrooms went out with Windows 3.1. Many times, I'd wished I could just talk to the patron on the phone. Anyway, IM sounds like a better deal for libraries: 1. Because people DO IT, and 2. Because it's easy to embed a cross-client tool like Meebo in a library homepage and away you go. Of course, I don't see a lot of folks over 40 twiddling their thumbs on their phones, but IM is a pretty cool way to involve young'ns with libraries and an option for staff communication as well.
(Confession: I'm not an IMer myself, I guess 'cause I've never had a reason to do it--talking and email work for me. )

Hey, that Stick section on Web conferencing turned me on to Opal. Pretty slick stuff there--lots of good content. I cruised through this presentation on Flickr, by two guys who weren't even in the same city as they put it on--and it worked. Graphics, sound, text--impressive.