I’m pleased that my article, IM a Librarian: Establishing a Virtual Reference Service with Little Cost or Technical Skill appears in the August edition of LLRX.
The article is basically a how to on using IM and chat in a library. It’s based on my own experience with both at the UW Law Library. We started our IM service last fall and added chat (Plugoo) in January and have been very pleased with both. Granted, the vast majority of our reference traffic is still in person, but with IM and chat we’re able to reach out to more people. And it was so easy to set up and use.