These pictures are mostly foolish, but here’s a small point: none of us had ever seen a cop pull over a cab — certainly not a cab with passengers — before this, so we were all rather curious about why. In front of us stood a question, an example of the many questions we all encounter every day, and it’s the kind of question that few of us would ever suggest going to the library to answer.

Posted March 25, 2006 by Casey
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information, Photoblog, Questionable...funny. Pointless.. Tags: cambridge, cambridge ma, future libraries, future library, information, information behavior, information seeking, lib20, libraries, library, library 2.0, massachusetts, police, question, questions, reference, reference information, sign, silly. Be the first one.

I noted Aaron Schmidt’s points on IM in libraries previously, but what I didn’t say then was how certain I was that popular instant messaging clients like AOL Instant Messenger or Yahoo!’s or Google’s are far superior to the so-called virtual reference products. Why? They’re free, our patrons are comfortable with them, and they [...]

Posted February 14, 2006 by Casey
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: aim, aol instant messenger, change, changing modes of communication, communication, communication technology, future libraries, im, instant messaging, lib20, libraries, library, library 2.0, modes of communication, reference, reference desk, virtual reference. 4 Comments.

Aaron Schmidt’s 10 points about IM in libraries include:

Instant Messaging is free (minus staff time)
Millions of our patrons use IM every day.
For some, not being available via IM is like not having a telephone number.
There are three major IM networks (AIM, Y!M, MSN)
Y!M and MSN will be interoperable at some point.
Trillian is a multi-network IM [...]

Posted November 21, 2005 by Casey
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information. Tags: aim, im, im client, im networks, instant messaging, libraries, library, point of contact, public relations, reference, reference services, relationships, telephone, telephone number, trillian. 2 Comments.