Thing 8: Communication - Web 2.0 Style

Some of the information in the e-mail productivity could be useful depending on what type of e-mail program is used. We use Microsoft Outlook for our e-mail and the notifier has information about the sender and subject in the pop up. If it looks important and urgent, like log out of our online catalog or the server is going to be taken offline, I will open the notifier and read the message. If it doesn’t look urgent, I close the notifier and check when I have time. Because of this, I don’t think changing the notifier would be very useful because I would miss the urgent messages.

I have used the Ask A Librarian service before the recent software change but I am not that familiar with either texting or chatting. I think that with the new Ask A Librarian software that seems to work better during the training, there is not a huge need to set up a separate instant messaging service. The Ask A Librarian service allows a lot more coverage for less staff investment, including coverage when the library is closed. I think it would be very difficult for someone who doesn’t do much text messaging to acclimate themselves to the 160 character restrictions.

I tried to listened to A Conversation with Tim Spalding from LibraryThing.com, from
September 22, 2006. It was difficult to listen to the interview because it was played through a speaker phone and sounded very tinny so I couldn’t listen to it for very long. Recently, I did a Solinet webinar on Using Worldcat on the Web. It was very easy to get used to the software. It was easy to ask a question and to respond to yes or no questions from the presenter. I think webinars are a great way to offer conferences to people who might not be able to attend an in-person conference due to financial constraints.