Thing 11 - Instant Messaging (North Texas 23 Things)

My first experience with "Instant messaging" was playing around with Internet Relay Chat (IRC) back in the late 1990s. I used to hang out on #germany (channel Germany) a whole lot, mostly to practice interacting with native German speakers online; it was a fun way to waste time; I'd sometimes have a beer in hand while logged on from my apartment in the Old Grad House on South Main in Houston, while I was still a graduate student in German Studies at Rice University.

I later watched over the shoulder of my friend Jase, who was an "early adopter" to America Online (AOL), and which had its own chat rooms exclusive to AOL users.

Today I sometimes use the "chat" feature of Facebook, which I was previously unaware of until a friend of mine from High School messaged me from her home in Alaska one evening. It kind of took me by surprise.

I also used to instant message a woman I was dating while working at AIG, via AIM (AOL Instant Messenger). This was technically against company policy, but evidently quite popular among bored night shift people. I had no idea, until this woman insisted I get on AIM so she could message me.

I also participated in online chats in Library school in the WebCT software platform, with varying degrees of success.

I find IM a somewhat frustrating mode of communication, though if you think IM is confusing, try Blog TV!! That's like IRC/IM and Live Video all rolled into one big confusing mess. It's like IRC but with eveyone having a webcam and a microphone.

Currently I have downloaded to my home PC (and work PC) the chat software from Google, namely Google Talk. I use my real name on it, John Ronald. I think that's my Google Talk user name, but I'm not 100% for sure. I basically got it because I have a photographer friend out in California who likes to chat, and I like her, so I broke down and did it. If I had it to do over again, I probably would've gone the Meebo route.

I know I have colleagues working in Reference and virtual reference is a big thing, being available a certain number of hours a week for live "chat reference", as opposed to traditional F2F reference or plane jane email reference. I'm told it can be somewhat stressful, especially if you get multiple patrons hitting you up at one time with multiple reference questions. In the world of cataloging, we really don't use IM software that much. Email usually suffices. I have of late purchased a web-cam, as well as screen capture software, so that I can take a digital moving image of a book or other information object in hand and show it to a more experienced cataloger, say, and also show a screen shot of my ILS, or a part of ClassWeb, or whatever, and ask for advice in areas where I feel "stuck". I haven't done this yet, but I do plan to do so the next time I have to tackle a particularly thorny cataloging problem while handling original cataloging or advanced copy cataloging.

I'm not crazy about IM as a way to communicate. I'd rather either talk on the phone or email or write a regular letter. IM can be useful for conveying short, discrete bits of information, but it's not the forum best suited to long philosophical discourse. The level of conversation almost never rises above that found on your typical internet message board, if even that. I accept that IM has found a permanent place in the delivery of Reference service, and that this is on the whole a good thing, but outside of that context I rarely use IM in any form anymore.