Here’s the text of a chat I had a couple of days ago. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. This person was IMing from Europe.
Cool Librarian in Europe: Hi want just to tell you I appreciate TTW a lot from here in ______
MS: greetings from the USA!
CLIE: I particularly follow the IM for VR issue, we’re very very far from this in here. i am fascinated by it
MS: IM & jybe could be very powerful
CLIE: I try to promote IM when I teach students hox to use e-resources, but it’s not easy
MS: wow i would think they would be into IM
CLIE: I work for an academic library, and the students are very attached to paper, and often reluctant to use technology
MS:oh yes i understand that but IM could serve a purpose for sure
CLIE:The problem is that there is no policy for that, it’s not considered as a service – and my new director doesn’t even know what it is
MS:OH NO
CLIE:much work to do
MS:educate
OH YES
MS: give the director some articles (shamelessy offering “IM Me” Schmidt & Stephens 2005)
CLIE: Not to mention blogs, RSS, and the like…
MS:goodness
CLIE:and that’s the case of many library directors
MS:yes
CLIE: I deal with those who have heard about blogs or rss or wikis think it’s a gadget. But no matter, we’re a small group of librarians trying to make things move forwards, with our blog but we do it in parallel of our libraries. We try to make a difference
MS: Rock on!