Instant Communication

Played around with Instant Messaging in Skype, Facebook and MSN Messenger. All of them were fairly simple to use and did not require technical knowledge to setup and access.
They are great for instantly talking with another individual, although your friends/colleagues must be online at the right time.

I can see that they have a use in the library, we have used Skype to run an author talk but that was done using webcam rather than text. I don't think it would work with instant chat only, but the instant chat could be used to ask questions.

Instant Messaging is a great tool for librarians to communicate with patrons, like the Ask Now example shown by the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. It would be important to ensure that once the service was introduced it was always staffed during advertised hours so that patrons would not be disappointed by lack of response.

There may be more uses in the future e.g. notification of events, but this might be starting to cross over with SMS notifications which is not the same technology.