Archive for the ‘IM’ Category

Phong Thai Cao at Six Revisions gathers up 10 Free Website Chat Widgets to Make Your Site Interactive. Many of these look good, and the post discusses the advantages to each in addition to a screenshot.

The Royal Pingdom blog has an interesting infographic displaying some
Amazing facts and figures about Instant Messaging. A history and timeline of instant-messaging is provided as well as useful statistics of how many people use each IM client.

Paul Pival at the Distant Librarian provides detailed instructions with annotated screenshots for Embedding chat widgets within EBSCO databases. If you’d like to place a MeeboMe or other chat widget right within an EBSCO database you’ll want to check this out. I think this is a great idea for supporting patrons at the point of need.

via LibrarianinBlack

Google Wave, a new type of communication tool, was unveiled at the Google IO conference yesterday. A combination of email, instant messaging, and many other collaborative features, this new application will be available to the public later this year. Additionally, Google plans to make the application Open Source. PCWorld asks Is Google Wave a Twitter Killer? and TechCrunch provides a detailed review of the new tool with plenty of screenshots. Below is the keynote from yesterday’s conference in which the application in fully demonstrated.

I’ve created a faculty office in Google Lively where my students can drop-in and chat in a virtual space. Up to 20 people can join and interact in a room at once, although 100 can enter rooms with view-only access. If you’ve installed Lively, stop by and say hello. If you’re just getting started you may find these resources helpful:

Official Lively Help Group

Lively Help Center

Blogoscoped’s Google Lively FAQ

On Tuesday, Google launched a virtual world called Lively which allows players to embed their avatars and even “rooms” from within the world into their websites and blogs. Similar to Second Life, users must download and install software in order to enter, but then can access the world from social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace. A search of Lively’s rooms reveals that several libraries may already experimenting with the service including the Alliance Virtual Library, ASU’s Noble Library, and Rutgers University Law Library.

For more coverage check out:

Google ventures into virtual reality with ‘Lively’

Google Tries To Go Lively With Its Own Virtual World Effort

Lively: Google Launches Virtual World

Lifehacker creates a list of the top five best instant messaging tools based on a user poll of over 550 comments. Here are the 5 most voted-for applications:

1. Digsby (Windows)
2. Pidgin (Windows/Linux)
3. Meebo (Web)
4. Adium (Mac OS X)
5. Trillian (Windows)

Honorable mention: Miranda IM

David Lee King and the folks at the The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library have integrated an interesting feature into their online catalog. They have embedded a Meebo chat widget into the unsuccessful keyword search results page, so that when patrons are having difficulty locating resources, they can contact a librarian via instant messaging, or the telephone number they display beside the widget. What a great way to offer an Ask a Librarian service, right when patrons most need it!

via David Lee King

I will be speaking today at the ACRL/NY Symposium about Social Software in Academic Libraries. My presentation is here on Slideshare.net. Thank you to all of the college and university libraries who gave me great quotes about their social software initiatives to use in my prez. Also, here is a quick guide to all of the websites I refer to in my presentation:

Wikis
Wikipedia
WikiHow
University of Minnesota Libraries Wiki
Antioch University New England Library Staff Training & Support Wiki
USC Aiken Gregg-Graniteville Library Wiki Webpage
Ohio University Libraries Biz Wiki
Butler University Libraries WikiRef
ALA 2007 Annual Conference Wiki
Library Success Wiki
Library Instruction Wiki

Social Bookmarking
StumbleUpon
del.icio.us
Southern Connecticut State University Hilton C. Buley Library
MIT Libraries Virtual Reference Collection
University of Pennsylvania Libraries’ PennTags
Libmarks
LIS901-06
Maui Community College Library
University of South Florida Lakeland Library Services
library2.0 tag
ALA2007 tag in del.icio.us

Media Sharing
YouTube
Flickr
Colorado College Tutt & Coburn Libraries
Arizona State University Libraries
Williams College Library on YouTube
School of Dentistry and Health Sciences Libraries at the University of Michigan
GeorgiaTech Webcasts
LIS901-06 Webcasts
SJSU’s School of Library and Information Science
American Library Association on Flickr

Social Networks
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library
University of Central Florida
StonyBrook University Health Sciences Library
Facebook Applications
JSTOR on Facebook
Library 2.0 network on Ning

Blogs
Kelvin Smith Library at Case Western Reserve University
Binghampton University Library
Mohawk College Library
Barnard College
University librarian at the McMaster University Library

IM
Ohio University Libraries
American University Library

Microblogging
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library
Lunar and Planetary Institute

Second Life
Nova Southeastern University Law Library & Technology Center
McMaster University Libraries
San Jose State University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Ohio University

Answers
Answer Board Librarians

Subject Guides
Boston College University Libraries LibGuides
LIS753 on Squidoo

For those of you who IM, you may want to head over to Web Worker Daily to see their latest collection of 17 Tips to Be Productive with Instant Messaging.

1. Limit your time.
2. Have a purpose.
3. Get to the point.
4. Be concise.
5. Know when to use IM.
6. Stay with one chat service.
7. Limit your friends.
8. Block unproductive friends.
9. Respect others’ time.
10. Be friendly.
11. Say thank you or congrats.
12. Bounce ideas off people.
13. Ask for quick favors.
14. Switch to email.
15. Use group chat.
16. End it quickly.
17. Think action.

IM aggregator/client Meebo has announced the launch of its own developer platform, allowing third-parties to create applications for its service much the same as Facebook Applications. One important distinction however, is that Meebo reserves the right to approve all new programs before they are added. So far there are four Meebo partners creating apps:

• Tokbox – provides video chat
• Talkshoe – provides conference calling capability
• Ustream – enables lifecasting
• Pudding Media – enables PC-PC VOIP calling

via TechCrunch

In this month’s Tech Tips for Every Librarian column in Computers in Libraries, Michael Stephens and Rachel Singer Gordon explain the process of getting up and running with the IM aggregator meebo, embedding a meebo me widget into a website or blog, and configuring a meebo Rooms chat space. Check out their helpful overview article, Embedding a Librarian in Your Web Site Using meebo.