New Feature For IM Reference

As many of you are aware the Bangor Public Library provides Instant Messaging (IM) Reference through Yahoo, AOL, MSN and Google. There are many advantages to this. For example if you are at your computer working on a paper and can't remember how to cite a magazine article you can have a response usually in less than a minute. One of the down sides though is that not everyone subscribes to one of those four IM service.

We are now providing a service (through meebo.com) on our Ask A Librarian Web Page that lets you send an Instant Message directly from the web site. Just type your question in the space labeled "Type Here and Hit Enter..." Usually you will get a response in a minute or less. However, the IM Librarian also has to answer the phone and help patrons in the library so if you don't get a response right away please be patient. Someone is usually online Tuesday through Friday 9:00 to 5:00 and on Monday from 12:00 to 8:00. Schedules do fluctuate though so check to make sure we are online. When you send a question the Instant Messenger will list you meebo [number]. This is a default setting and you can type in your own name where is says "edit nickname" if you choose. If you look to the left I've changed it to BPL Patron.

We are still working out the bugs on this (trying it on different operating systems, browsers, ISPs, etc.) If you run into any problems please let us know so we can try to fix them. And we will keep answering IM questions from Yahoo, AOL (BangorPubLib), Google (bplpublib) and MSN (reference@bpl.lib.me.us)

Jim Riordan jriordan@bpl.lib.me.us