Instant Messaging - an almost newbie's experience

Librarians in the blogosphere are talking about providing reference services through Instant Messaging (IM) software. There is a general feeling that the best way to do this is to get yourself an account with all the major IM services (Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, mIRC, MSN) and fill out your profile. Create a common userid / nickname for all these services and then advertize it on your business cards or bookmarks. This is a nifty idea and appears to be working out for a number of libraries. The Public Libraries in particular seem to be having a great deal of success. Sadly the last time I actually had an active "chat" life was back in 1991-1992! I like chatting and thought it was a cool idea to actually setup accounts and get back into the "chat" world. So I eagerly set up Yahoo, AIM, ICQ and MSN to start. One thing I noticed immediately was that when I started up my computer I was bombarded by login screens, honking horns (ICQ) and an overwhelming sense of panic! Another thing I noticed was that none of my colleagues are chatting. I decided to back off a bit and just start with ICQ because my mom is on ICQ and maybe she would chat with me. It turns out that she has an ICQ account but is almost never on! It's also faster to have a phone conversation with her. :) I started to login to AIM because I added to my buddy list three librarians who presented at the Internet Librarian conference last year. Not because I know them that well, it was just to feel some sort of connectedness to the world of librarian IM'ers. Yes, I realized that was hopelessly pathetic and I moved on. Then I remembered an attempt by my institution to get everyone connected using MSN. So I started contacting colleagues to see if they were interested in getting started again. I targeted the ones that were the geeks and hard to get a hold of on the phone. I had some success and then started to try and get others interested. I have come to the realization that people need to be reminded about how easy to use the software is and how convenient it is for sending web pages and files during a conversation either in chat or over the phone. So my goal over the next while is to try and develop some chat friends and encourage other librarians to try this out. Start small. Now I had committed myself to keeping my availablility information current in three IM services. You do have to be very disciplined about making yourself available if you are interested in chatting. What good are you as an IM'er if you are never around? If you've tried this you know that if you leave your computer you should be polite and let each service know you are "away" and when you come back. I work on the second floor of our library and the reference desk and the bulk of the library staff are on the first floor. This means that I am frequently dashing up and down the stairs. So letting the IM services know when I am available has proved to be quite the challenge and frankly no small irritation! UNTIL I talked with a local technogeek and was reminded about Trillian. This software was mentioned at the Internet Librarian conference by someone I went out to lunch with at the Hogg's Breath Inn in Carmel. Not that where we had lunch is important, I just like the name of the place. At the time I only sort of understood that the software was IM software which allowed you to talk with a number of IM services from one software. I checked it out today and it was like the sky opened up and a rainbow hit me on the head. This software is seriously cool. If are interested in trying the multiple IM service route, Trillian makes this so much easier. I now let Trillian log me into all the services at the same time. I can send messages to all the services simultaneously letting people know when I am away and when I am available. I am no longer plagued by multiple service windows and honking horns, just a nice little chime and I am good to go. I have yet to have simlutaneous chat sessions with different chat services in Trillian but I am assuming that they will all use the same simple, easy to use interface. I'll let you know how it goes and if you want to play along my nickname is "cacemlis" in all the services. Update My technoguru is using Psi which works the same way as Trillian.