Instant Messaging (IM) tools are a low cost option in setting up a virtual reference service. So writes Bonnie Shucha, law librarian at U. Wisconsin Madison Law School. In an LLRX.com article "IM a Librarian: Establishing a Virtual Reference Service with Little Cost or Technical Skill" Shucha outlines what is needed.
Instant messaging services are not compatible with each other- the free IM services really want "friends" to talk their own circle of acquaintances into joining the same service. Yet for IM to be useful in a law library the librarian has to be able to accept incoming messages from the different services, be they Yahoo, Google, AIM or some other brand. To accept messages from all the services, Shucha suggests signing up for the same IM name on each service. In addition a reference service would need a software solution that can accept messages from various IM services. To monitor multiple IM services two companies provide solutions, Trillian and Meebo. Trillian requires a downloaded software client, whereas Meebo is a straight web connection to the service with no local software to install. Many institutions have restrictions on client software being downloaded so a straight web conection seems preferable.
With the technical details out of the way, Shucha makes a different point--why do it at all? Her answer is to more efficiently and effectively communicate the way your client expects to communicate, and also to establish a service presence where none has existed.
Possibly unexamined in IM a Librarian is the added workload this will impose. With any new service there is a level of uncertainty about the amount of staff time a project will require. It is important for any innovative service to have management support lest the innovator be overwhelmed.
Nicely written and well thought through IM proposal. Bibliorati says "Two thumbs up--on keypad."
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Friday, August 3, 2007
Resource site for California public policy reports
Students of California government will already know about the Institute for Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. An IGS librarian has created a nifty policy report service called California Policy Box. The newest featured report creates the lead story for the day, older posts move down one position. Each report gets a general topic assigned, and a link to reports on the same topic is provided. In the left frame you can go directly to the general topic of choice, examples include Crime and Punishment, Healthcare, and my favorite, Resources and Economy.
As The Count would say "Wonderful, but wait there's more." Waay doown in the left frame is a link to Organizations. The Organizations page is no link farm, rather the best list I have found for groupss that do research and issue policy reports about California. So if you want to get early word of a new report, point your Web alert service at the sites enumerated on this list.
While some useful and highly respected governmental sites like Little Hoover Commission and the Legislative Analyst make the list, other California agencies or commissions do not. Among the missing, the Air Resources Board, and the California Energy Commission, and an interesting hybrid page, the California Climate Change Portal. If all the CEC or the ARB did was issue government reports that would be reason to drop them off the list, but the climate and energy research that shows up in support of administrative law decisions or to supplement witness testimony at public hearings by those agencies makes them worthy of inclusion. Perhaps a second group of governmental organizations that publish policy reports could include those entities. Differentiating a private sector think tank from a government site might be a useful way of accomodating state agencies without diluting the strength of the IGS organizations list.
Those nitpicks aside, this is a good page to bookmark. The layout of the Policy Inbox is clean, lean and intuitive. BiblioRati gives it two thumbs up.
As The Count would say "Wonderful, but wait there's more." Waay doown in the left frame is a link to Organizations. The Organizations page is no link farm, rather the best list I have found for groupss that do research and issue policy reports about California. So if you want to get early word of a new report, point your Web alert service at the sites enumerated on this list.
While some useful and highly respected governmental sites like Little Hoover Commission and the Legislative Analyst make the list, other California agencies or commissions do not. Among the missing, the Air Resources Board, and the California Energy Commission, and an interesting hybrid page, the California Climate Change Portal. If all the CEC or the ARB did was issue government reports that would be reason to drop them off the list, but the climate and energy research that shows up in support of administrative law decisions or to supplement witness testimony at public hearings by those agencies makes them worthy of inclusion. Perhaps a second group of governmental organizations that publish policy reports could include those entities. Differentiating a private sector think tank from a government site might be a useful way of accomodating state agencies without diluting the strength of the IGS organizations list.
Those nitpicks aside, this is a good page to bookmark. The layout of the Policy Inbox is clean, lean and intuitive. BiblioRati gives it two thumbs up.
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