BAIT AND SWITCH
I spoke too soon. Here I was, on a roll, thinking I was finally past the quicksand when bam! Thing #8 reared its grisled head. Actually a troika of heads.
Because Thing #8 isn't one thing, it's three: instant messaging, text (short) messaging, and web conferencing. This is hardly fair.
WAITING FOR RENKOO
The "How Instant Messaging Works" article by Jeff Tyson and Alison Cooper proved informative enough, although in my naivte, I made the mistake of clicking on the link in the Video Gallery: Instant-Messaging box that was touted as "Watch this video about event planning on How Stuff Works. Renkoo is a fun way to negotiate the when and where of social events. . . ."
I will never do that again.
Instead of taking me to a video about instant messaging, it took me to a video about a natural unicorn (a deer with one horn growing out of the middle of its head) that lives in a Tuscan deer park.
Not exactly on target, but I watched it anyway out of serendipity and a sense of loyalty to my totem animal (the virtual unicorn). It was blessedly brief.
Afterwards, I rummaged around and found the event planning video, which lasted 22 excruciating minutes. The presentation was amazingly informal. Poor lighting, uneven sound. It was like watching somebody's home movies.
Eavesdropping on three people casually chatting about "peach-pea" (I finally figured out they were talking about PHP) is certainly one way to absorb information, but not a very efficient one.
My time is a premium, and I would have appreciated some condensation, editing, scripting, and a minimum threshold of production values.
(It did, however, conclude that perhaps Renkoo or a similar IM tool could have proven useful in setting up our recent Valentine's Day Cookie Exchange.. Certainly better than an endless email thread. Something to think about.)
HOW INSTANT MESSAGING WORKS
Badly traumatized, I returned to the "How Instant Messaging Works" article and vowed not to be lured again from the True Path so easily while traipsing through Faerie.
The 2-minute video of the University of Buffalo librarian IM chat session with the panicked student was entertaining--and compact! Compact is good!--although I wish some of the IM acronyms could have been decoded for me. (Maybe via subtitles.)
COMPARING IM SERVICES
I then took a look at the three major IM services.
Google Talk appears to be for Windows users only. Gnash of teeth. But it's okay. That's why I own an Intel Mac: I can impersonate a PC any time I want. (Although it still feels like knuckling under to the Borg.)
I see that Gmail offers video chat for both Mac and PC users. That's nice.
Yahoo Messenger is web-based, so no download required.
AIM 6.8 seems to work with Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.
ALL GOOGLED UP AND NO ONE TO TALK TO
Most of my co-workers in my department favor Google Talk for their IM, so that's what I'll sign up for, as soon as Parallels (my Windows emulator) finishes installing Internet Explorer 7 and Java.
Downloads are complete, so I've just signed up for a Google Talk account and entered four of my coworkers into my contacts. I've invited them all to chat, but nobody seems to be available right now. The NEFLIN Meebo Widget says they're offline as well, so I'll check back later.
Back to blogging.
INSTANT MESSAGING
The LJ article "IM Me" by Aaron Schmidt and Michael Stephens was an interesting read. The article asserts that IM is "less formal" than chat. All I have to say to that is it's hard for me to imagine how anything could be less formal than chat.
The article also mentions system crashes with chat, which I assume resemble the constant glitching and freezing I experienced while staffing the Ask-a-Librarian virtual reference desk back during the days of the old interface. I haven't run into nearly so many problems with the new portal.
I do see the utility of library staff using IM to communicate with one another rather than making long distance calls. My own library system, the Alachua County Library District, has branches in multiple area codes.
I was puzzled by the remark that IM leaves no "trail," so that users feel freer to say controversial / political / unpopular things via IM than they would using email.
I am skeptical. I don't think any electronic communication method leaves no trail. I'll bet that if someone wanted to, even an "off the record" IM session could be captured and saved.
I think it's also the wiser course to exercise a modicum of decorum when expressing oneself at work--even using a supposedly ephemeral, trail-free medium--than to put one's foot in one's mouth and regret it at leisure.
My final observation on the SJ article: 24/7 IM service wouldn't be practical at ACLD simply because we wouldn't be able to afford to pay staff to do it--not unless we're willing to cut other services and assign somebody to staff a graveyard shift.
I just don't see that happening. Maybe in an academic library that keeps very late hours, but not at the public library--or at least, not at our public library.
TEXT MESSAGING
As for text (short) messaging, I read through both the How Stuff Works article "How SMS Works" by Jennifer Horde and the Smart Libraries Newsletter article "SMS Offers Libraries New Talk Tool" by Marshall Breeding.
They were okay. Informative. I felt pretty jaded at this point. Thank heavens I wasn't required to do anything, sign up for anything, create another username and password. Exhaustion was setting in.
WEB CONFERENCING
Finally, I accessed the OPAL archive and watched a 1-hour dual session on "The Wonderful World of Wikis" by Chad Boeninger, creator of The Biz Wiki, and "The How of Wikis" by Starr Hoffman, discussing how to set up a PBwiki.
Even though PBwiki has a newer version out now, with a slightly different look, it was still interesting. I'm in the middle of creating a wiki as a combined class / work project and wasn't able to take the SLA webinar on best practices for creating a wiki, so I thought I'd fill in the gap.
I was glad I did. Watching the OPAL archive for free was better than paying SLA $89 to take their webinar.
SUCCESS: IM AT LAST
Okay. We're getting to the end of the post at last. A compassionate coworker consented to IM chat with me via Google Talk a couple of evenings ago. I've been working on my wiki and preparing for class, so I didn't get a chance to finish this post until now.
My coworker and I exchanged instant messages with one another while sitting side-by-side on the public service desk. It was hilarious in a way--but not actually that different from what I see patrons doing.
By that, I mean, I've seen two people sitting in adjacent chairs, both mesmerized by their hand-held devices (PDAs or cell phones or some such thing) simultaneously texting one another and conversing verbally. They don't look at one another, just stare at their screens.
Their thumbs are punching little buttons and manipulating controls so fast they're practically a blur. I wonder if they're going to develop some sort of new physical disorder similar to Tennis Elbow but entitled "Texter's Thumb."
Are they wearing down their joints? Developing arthritis? It seems rude to ask. I always just keep my mouth shut and walk on. At least they're not yelling or yakking obliviously at a deafening volume. The texters I've seen are always muttering softly out of the sides of their mouths.
My coworker and I did the same, talking to one another even as we instant messaged back and forth. I'm not sure if this qualifies as multitasking, or just pointless overkill. I found the whole experience just too weird.
