American Libraries Direct...and directed....

Amazing how one things leads to another...

I have an RSS feed from American Libraries Direct (admin@aldirect.ala.org) and from that link I noticed that Aaron Schmidt had a column had a column on Instant Messaging at the Reference Desk. Since I had just heard him on an archived SirsiInstitute, I clicked on it...

IM reference talking points
Chicago-area librarian Aaron Schmidt offers some reasons why instant messaging might be a good tool for reference services: “Don’t worry, people aren’t going to get mad if you’re helping people online when they walk up as long as you explain what you’re doing. Use those moments to promote your service!” The University of Guelph Library has already started using it....
Walking Paper blog, Nov. 2

And it also took me to a Wiki called Library Success which listed all the libraries using IM in their Reference work. In California, the following sites are listed.

Claremont Colleges - AIM, gTalk, MSN, Yahoo!
Livermore Public Library - AIM, MSN, Yahoo!
Marin County Free Library - AIM, MSN, Yahoo!
Santa Clara University Library - AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ
University of California Berkeley - Government Information - AIM, gTalk, ICQ, Yahoo!
University of San Francisco, Gleeson Library - AIM, gTalk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!

and then there was Liszen which indexes over 500 library blogs...