WML Tech Updates

Jenny Levine had a great post today on communicating with library users, whether in-person, on the phone, IM, texting, or just changing the status of your IM so people can easily tell whether or not you are available.

I talked with my colleague Cynthia just the other day about this, and how we both change our status in Trillian quite regularly. Unfortunately, only a couple other WML library staff use IM, and they use different clients like AIM, Yahoo, or MSN. Heck, even LITS set up an in-house client (Exodus) to test, but it’s never been announced or promoted to all the libraries for use, nor do they intend to advertise it. They say it’s up to the directors of the individual libraries to determine whether or not to implement it. So I guess if I am really adamant about using IM in WML, I need to make a convincing case to our director. We need to be on the same page internally before we even attempt to do IM reference interactions with library users. But wouldn’t it be cool if I could IM with any of my colleagues throughout the Heard Library system, many of whom I need to interact with regularly because of committees and project teams? And do you know anyone not in favor of reducing the amount of email we get?

I personally communicate with my colleagues in a number of ways. Some people only respond to email, but I have several colleagues throughout the Heard Library system that I communicate with via Facebook, IM via Exodus, IM via Trillian, and even SMS texting. And with some people, it’s just easier to call. But one thing Jenny said really hit me.

“…it’s important to do the cliche and “think outside of the box” of how we ourselves might view communication. Even when we do focus groups or informal surveys, it tends to be with library users, who might not be that different from us. Therefore, we might miss patterns like these that show a shift in how the outside world communicates.”

I think it is important that we keep in mind how other people communicate and want to be communicated with. I know some reference librarians that when they get an instant message, or even an email, they insist that the user come into the library because the librarian thinks it’s easier to explain how to find something or use a particular resource. But there are so many tools out there that can help the patron just as much as an in-person interaction. We could be doing screencasts, mini podcasts, creating interactive tutorials, adding the info to a wiki or a research guide. I am sure other people besides myself get tired of answering the same questions over and over again. But I think our users like having options on how they not only find information, but having options in how they interact with us as well.

The person who emailed a reference question to a librarian - she emailed because either it was inconvenient, she didn’t want to come into the library, or she didn’t want to talk to a person. Isn’t customer service about giving people the type of service they want, not what we want? Why do we present to our users so few options of interacting with us when the communications possibilities are almost endless and continually expanding?