I.M. Reference using the AIM widget
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
Since early 2008, my library has been providing reference help though instant messaging. We set up IM accounts with a number of services, and connect to them all through the IM client, Pidgin. We also installed a MeeboMe widget on our ask a librarian page, so people can ask us a question without having an IM account. This is actually where the majority of our IM questions are coming from.
Recently though, because of some network connectivity issues, the Meebo widget has been displaying our status as being offline, even though the librarians were logged into IM. Not good.
To remedy the situation, I installed an AIM WIMZI widget on our site instead. The library already had an account through AIM, so this was an easy fix. The AIM widget also comes with a number of additional benefits.
