Thing Seven

E-mail
I appreciate Microsoft Outlook's tools, especially the ability I have organize read messages in folders, flag messages for response, and direct e-mail messages from a particular sender into pre-specified folders. My personal account allows these same functions and I use them there, as well.

But, as the author of Five fast email productivity tips points out no matter how many wonderful tools are available to increase productivity e-mail can also be a HUGE distraction. I've found that checking my messages twice a day is quite sufficient and helps me remain more fully focused on the important tasks at hand. As important as I may believe librarianship is, there is very little of urgent importance in my world. Less checking is, perhaps, the best advice for productivity!

More on Instant Messaging
Although I have already experimented with Google Talk I had yet to watch the University of Buffalo YouTube. My multi-tasking trepidation is now coupled with an anxiety of having to learn a new language. In all seriousness, while I think IM is a great tool and I am very interested in how it might help us be where our students need us I would have to spend time "practicing" my IM skills with co-workers and/or friends before I felt comfortable and confident that I was offering good service. And it appears I am not the only one with this fear: "'Some librarians are afraid of being overwhelmed with questions, are not comfortable handling multitasking…don't type very fast, or just prefer face-to-face interaction,' states Chris Desai, who manages the IM initiative at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale." In the same way that a face to face interview is different from phone reference I believe there are IM skills that I would need to hone and types of phrases I would need to learn to more effectively communicate via IM.

Text Messaging
This would be great for the simple questions we run into everyday: what database should I use? how late are you open? do you have...? I can even imagine students sitting upstairs studying using the function if they are having trouble finding an article in full-text but don't want to bother with running down and finding a librarian. And besides all of that I would be very excited if a user could text message call numbers from the catalog so that they can locate books.

Thing Seven, 2a.

For the sake of a speedy co-worker I skipped ahead to Instant Messaging. It is, I will admit, difficult to talk to oneself in the virtual world.

The two of us spent a very brief seesion experimenting with Google talk. While it was simple enough to install I cannot say that I was terribly impressed with its functionality. At one point we completely lost one another; not a great situation if you are chatting with a distressed (or cranky!) student. Additionally, I found that I had a hard time contining my work and keeping track of chatting developments. I felt it might become challenging to pay attention to the user and perform research simultaneously. Perhaps my difficulties had a bit to do with my distate for multi-tasking, but I had expected a better notification system.

While I would be really interested in trying IM for reference I would like a chance to play around with some different providers. I would also be interested in hearing how other libraries deal with streamling their choice of tools considering the broad number available and the fact each student may prefer a different one.