This week’s activity in our LIBR 246 class under Prof. Faires is on synchronous online communications. The activities involved interacting with other students using instant messaging and internet telephony. The choices are Google Talk, Skype, Meebo, and AIM. I already have an account with Google Talk, Skype, and MeeboMe so I did not have to create one for this assignment. I used to have an AIM account when AOL was the dominant internet provider in the US and Yahoo was the dominant search engine portal and almost everyone online at that time have an AIM, Yahoo, or Hotmail handle. But with the arrival of multi-platform web application like Trillian; and the fact that most of current IM applications allowing you to text people using anither application,there is really no point anymore to maintain several IM handle at the same time. I remember always seeing an AOL disc at about any store aside from those that gets mailed to you. But times have changed.
I would say I am an old hand in using IM and SMS, and maybe a moderate user in terms of VOIP calls. In my experience, conversations with my classmates, the discussion during the Elluminate session on synchronous communications and in Farkas’ Social Software in Libraries, all points to how it mimics real time conversations in terms of being instantaneous as the primary reason why it is used mainly to communicate with family and friends. It was also remarked on the Elluminate discussion how, in the case of SMS, it is used by teens to say things that are not easy to say in person or to discuss people around them. On the other hand, the absence of cost in terms of PC to PC calls and its lower rates in terms of calls to landlines makes VOIP use attractive as an alternative to landlines. Its wide acceptance as a communication tool can also be attributed to the improvement in bandwidth speed, internet connection, and the quality of the calls made using VOIP software.
But what about libraries?
Farkas observed how these synchronous online communication technologies have been around for quite some time, are now being used by information professionals to provide reference assistance. With regards to IM, Farkas mentioned the Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries; public libraries like the New Castle-Henry County Public Library; and academic libraries like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as examples of information centers that offer IM reference service. There are a vareity of ways how libraries have implemented IM or SMS reference. It can be through an embedded chat application on their library website, or through a service provider wherein they post information on their website the number to use to text them with a code word. These messages are then received by the library in their email. Some libraries use the same method of having patrons text to a number and a code word but receive them directly in their mobile internet devices and mobile phones. These methods reflect how libraries are trying to reach out to their customers by offering services through means and devices that their customers would have access to. Examples of an embedded chat application is MeeboMe, a multi-platform web application. The Library Success wiki shows a good number of university libraries like the California State University in San Marco and the University of California Berkley Library. Examples of libraries that offer these services and received them through mobile phones or mobile internet devices are the Yale University Science Library through the iPhone or the Drake Library through a Blackberry. Even the use of these convergent devices that offer cellular telephony, messaging applications, and internet access is a reflection of how much has changed in how we communicate and share information. The Homer Township Public Library started offering IM or SMS reference service as a way to reach out to teens. Statistics gathered by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and quoted in the Homer Township Public Library of Illinois PPT slide presentation of IM Reference: What we’ve learned, show how an overwhelming number of teens are online, uses instant messaging, or use it to do their homework so providing IM reference is just another way for the library to be available to assit teens in their information needs.
Finally, with regards to VOIP, libraries are using them to provide more options for their customers who are not necessarily local to reach them like distance learners. Notice how the Library Success wiki list mostly university libraries like the University of Ohio Libraries that offer Skype as part of their referecne tools. Others are offering VOIP references service to customers who are visually impaired. Farkas cited InfoEyes as an example of an information center that offers reference assitance to those with visual impairments.