Thing 7: Web 2.0 Communication Tools

1. E-mail. I've been using e-mail since the mid-1990s. I graduated from ESU's distance ed. program in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1994. It would have been so helpful to have used email then. I know at one point I was working with a group of 4 other students--all of us from a different state! And no e-mail. We used snail-mail to send our project back and forth! If these tools existed back then, none of us knew about them.

I did read the productivity article. I do use short answers, and I like email to send information to more than one person at a time. I confess I like to get real time notification of incoming messages. I don't spend a lot of time with them, and usually I don't read them right away, but since we use it within the library for communicating among ourselves, I like to see things when they are sent out. I know I could be a bit more productive by only checking at intervals, but...

One of my pet peeves is people who do not use correct spelling, capitalization and punctuation in e-mail. It seems like a common courtesy, and can it really take THAT much time??

2. IM. We use IM at the reference desk as one way to "Ask a Librarian." It takes a little getting-used-to, but I like it. I had to get comfortable asking someone to wait while I checked on something. The use of the service is increasing, I think. I also use IM for personal use. It's fun to send a quick message when I see a buddy is online.

You lose some communication cues, like gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language, when you use some of these Web 2.0 tools. I've used video chat, with Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger, for personal use, and I think these would work well for Reference service, too. Laptops have built-in cameras now, and wireless access is often available in our libraries. How great would this be for our distance ed. programs! As far as video chat for personal use, it was great to actually see those first halting steps my grandson took and to see that bloody little tooth clutched in those five-year-old fingers rather than just hearing about them. In those cases, a picture was worth much more than a thousand words!

3. I don't use text messaging personally, although my plan includes the service. I'd still have to pay for every message. There are access issues here, though. My husband loves text messaging because his hearing loss precludes easy and comfortable communication using the phone. I was intrigued by the idea of an ILS including texting capabilities. For those of us in academic libraries, that's really reaching students where they're at.

4. Web Conferencing. I've attended many MINITEX webinars, most recently last week to learn about the new features included in Connexion Client 2.1. They are convenient, and it is wonderful not to have to travel so much for training like we did only a few years ago. Much of the training for the ALEPH ILS is also delivered in this manner. My only reservation is that I am sometimes more reluctant to ask questions or make comments than I would be in person. (Do I think I'll look stupider online rather than in person??) I think this is related to the lack of visual cues again.

Many of the training sessions are archived. Could librarians take advantage of this functionality for frequently asked questions? The basics of using popular databases, how to get started with RefWorks, citation styles are topics we answer again and again. It would be convenient sometimes to direct students, or even entire classes, to archived training sessions.