A first-semester experiment at Tutt Library offers research assistance to the college community via instant messaging (IM), in which people simultaneously logged onto an Internet messaging program can communicate instantly, as if in real-time e-mail. The Bulletin IM’d Humanities Liaison Librarian Steve Lawson to find out more.

Heading to Tutt Library to double-check that last source could become a less common activity as students now communicate with librarians instantly from the comfort of their rooms — or the quad, or the cafeteria, or wherever they’re using their laptops. Photo by Elizabeth Kolbe ’08.

How did the Instant Messaging program come 2 B?
Reference Services Librarian Lisa Lister learned at an Internet Librarian conference what other libraries were doing with IM reference. It seemed like a good way to reach out to students who were already using IM. Lisa and I have been the main coordinators, with about eight librarians staffing the service.

Is it used frequently by the campus community?
Depending on the time of the block, we get anywhere from a few IMs a day to a few a week. That’s not much, but we are happy people are starting to use the new service.

What kinds of inquiries are normally made over IM?
We get a little of everything, from “btw, what time do you close tonight?” to “pls help me find journal articles for my research paper.”

Where do you draw the line between helping and doing the work for the student?
Tbh, that’s something we think about in all kinds of reference work, not just with IM. I “talk” through my steps with students: “Go to the library home page and click on ‘Article Databases.’” Then I have them do the search with me. The student decides which of the resources we are finding are the most appropriate for his or her project. I might help them choose a database and think of search terms, then say, “hth” — I let them go on their own once they are finding relevant results.

Any strange occurrences unique to the IM interchange?
A librarian responded to one student’s research request and got an away message saying, “brb — leave some luv!” So our librarian left another message: “Luv from tuttlibrarian!” Later, the student IM’d back, “Thanks for the luv, tuttlibrarian!” But that went to a different librarian on IM duty, who had no idea what the student was talking about (and may have wondered if she was getting harassed — lol).

One of the funny things about IM is that we don’t know much about the person asking the questions. They don’t know which librarian they are IM’ing, either, unless they ask.

Is the service open to everyone affiliated with CC, including alumni?

Afaik, if an alumnus IM’d us and identified himself as such, we’d be happy to help. Our real target audience is students, though.

How has the new system been received?

We’re still getting used to the norms of communicating via IM. The students have been using instant messaging for years, while many of us just started this summer. It can be a challenge for a reference librarian to handle people lined up at the reference desk, phone calls, and the IM service simultaneously. But students seem to like it; several of my IM sessions have ended with students saying “gtg — this IM thing is a great idea” or “You guys rock!” which is gratifying.

Tafn; thx 4 your help. Steve, ttyl.

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