From a flurry of good articles about a recent talk by Stephen Abrams (who is doing a terrific service to LibraryLand by playing Resident Scold on All Issues Technological), I winnow out this Abramism caught by Tame the Web: “Everyone under 25 has an IM account but most librarians over 30 don’t. This needs to change.”
Yesterday, as Alice among the Academics, I spent the day on AOL instant messaging, in a group where the mean age had to be at least 40. Not only do many librarians not have instant messaging–which makes them unfamiliar with a key form of social software–but many library IT departments block instant messaging for patrons and staff alike. I can (but won’t) name one sleek library in the Bay Area where I spent a highly unproductive afternoon thinking I could use their wifi connection to work away from home, only to find I couldn’t IM my team. If it doesn’t bother Starbucks, why does it bother you?
(I was also disturbed by this “critique” of IM: “I also think they chat amongst themselves without the boss overhearing.” I hope librarians talk among themselves. Must every conversation include the boss?)
One key justification for using virtual reference software rather than instant messaging software, shared with me at the state conference last week, is that many city IT departments don’t allow IM software. Which leads me to conclude:
1. Many city IT departments are too godlike,
2. Many libraries are unable to effectively work with IT departments (and will go to great lengths to avoid engaging with IT), and
3. We are all too good at shooting ourselves in the foot.
I am fully aware of all the additional functionality found in virtual reference products, and I celebrate the librarians who pioneered VR, which is the embodiment of all Anne Lipow stood for: closing the gap between librarian and user–as Anne often said, it is the librarian, not the patron, that is remote. All that notwithstanding, even if you use custom VR software for some specialized purposes, it’s not a substitute for instant messaging. Furthermore, insisting that VR software is necessary for virtual reference places an artificial obstacle to providing virtual reference in the first place.
Sarah Houghton and her camp followers are right. Plain old instant messaging software is what your patrons use and how they will find you, and is a tool you should be familiar with at home as well as work, and make available on every computer in the library.
Posted on this day, other years:
- I am the Annoyed Librarian - 2007
- Summary of my defrag talk - 2007
- Going FRBRish - 2004
- Filtering: The Low-Down Truth - 2003
Quite a few places that I know of don’t allow IM apps to be installed due to the various security problems (AIM specifically). Some just have firewalls that block everything but a few ports (www,etc). That doesn’t stop people from using web-based versions. Did you try using one of them or perhaps meebo (http://www.meebo.com)? It’s usually possible to IM even if the default network is locked down. Less likely to raise concern if your not installing applications either.
Our university does not have IM on the computer labs as far as I remember but there is no real firewall for that traffic so you can either use your own computer or a web-based IM client. Most of the people I know are used to being on locked down public machines and so know how to use the web-based IM.
Most network people that I know find it easiest (and safest) to block everything then open what’s needed. If enough people request that IM ports be opened you may get it. Depends though.
I challenge the essential bogosity of any “security problem” inherent to instant messaging. All network communications are insecure; it’s IT’s job to secure them. Patrons aren’t using those other tools. They are using AOL IM, and Yahoo. I’ve used the web-based versions, and they suck.
There is a product from ELMTree Software called ChatPatrol that solves many of the security objections IT managers have expressed with regard to instant messaging. (www.chatpatrol.com)
So there’s another point: none of this is insoluble.
Every time I see talk about IM it just reminds me that I need to play around with a Jabber (http://www.jabber.org/) based program at some point.
Jon Gorman
I’m tha one that made that statement, about staff IMing behind their boss’s back.. I know my staff does it, and actually, I’m glad for it. It’s just when they IM each other about a problem that I should be aware of, and it never quite reaches me until the solution is more difficult.
And on different note, our IM setup is among just our department – not in the Nameless Indiana Public Library where we work. Again, it is the IT people as ‘godlike’ making things extremely difficult for wi-fi, [a 26 figure Hex WEP, and IT had to have the MAC address for my PDA]. No RSS, no blogs, but they finally ‘saw the light’ and put Firefox on the public computers.
As you all problay know, we have used IM for several years for our “Talk to a Librarian Live” service. The only ones that need the add functionailty of the commercail VR systems appear to be librarians and not our users.
I also think the security concern is a red herring.
I am an IT guy in a library, a lifelong library lover, and married to a librarian and I’d like to make a few statements on the three points made.
1. Many city IT departments are too godlike:
That would be a big “yeah, buddy.” IT departments by nature attract a maverick personality that, more often than it should, sees everything from a microcosm of their own needs and desires. Work in an academic library? Ever had the IT department decide to replace your circulation system or other important software right after the semester started? There needs to an accountability to the needs of the people served by IT departments. I’ll grant you that right out of the blocks. However, I’ll also refer you to my comments on points 2 and 3.
2. Many libraries are unable to effectively work with IT departments (and will go to great lengths to avoid engaging with IT):
Yes. And part of the problem is the self involved world of IT departments and our IT jobs attract people who are easily sucked into these self absorded universes—-so, many of you have had bad experiences dealing with us. I understand that; but you’ve also let the problem develop by too often in the past, and especially when our relationship was developing, choosing to acquiesce and not take an active and professional part in the development of our relationship. Now we’re tied together by the changing nature of information access and librarians (much to my consternation over the last 5 years) have not used their communication skills actively in the development of our relationship. For years I read inane articles on libraries and technologies by librarians who really didn’t “get IT†and were writing primarily for other librarians that didn’t “get ITâ€. Get knowledgeable and get aggressive about technology–it’s essential to the future of libraries. Get knowledgeable, get aggressive, and shake IT off its self indulgent backside. Stop thinking that working in a library should be comfortable. You’re at a critical juncture in the shaping of libraries and information access for the future. Complacency, meekness, and not being on the inside of the technology business have no place in your lives if you care about libraries.
3. We are all too good at shooting ourselves in the foot:
Well said. “Information Professionalsâ€. “Information Specialistsâ€. Gee, those sound so good. “We’re not just librarians dealing with books anymore. We’re Information Professionals and we’re leadersâ€. Your professional organization of Information Professionals redesigned its website without the informational savvy to forward links to its own information. That doesn’t even require deep technological skills. Okay, that horse is dead and has been much beaten and is just one of my personal bugaboos. Let’s move on. While, you’ve found it easy to make strong statements on social and political issues, you’re still (most, not all of you) curling into little balls and taking what you’re given where technology is concerned. Get serious about what this convergence of ours means, get the real skills you need to go head to head with a recalcitrant IT department, and then go to battle. It would be great if IT departments were filled with people who loved and understood libraries, but it just isn’t going to work out that way. There is no justification for an IT department to change its comfortable ways of doing things to meet your needs unless you present those needs to them in their own language and then stand firm and demand real reasons for not getting them (and have the ability to analyze and challenge the technological validity of the answers). If you don’t do it, you’re just creating a slow suicide by apathy, complacency, and inactivity. Shooting yourself in the foot is a minor injury to the future of libraries compared to this.
Thanks for letting me rant. I love libraries and I really hope that we can all pull together to create a great future for them and I’m really excited to finally be hearing a groundswell of technological excitement in libraries that’s beyond “We’ve got the Internet.†Maybe we’re getting to a critical mass where there are enough geeks in the profession to create a real, rather than titular, change.
I would love to see more stuff written and dealt with that concerns the very real problems that libraries have dealing with IT departments and how to go about solving them.
Agreed on the security concern…all network traffic has a potential to be abused, but no one is advocating cutting outselves off completely from the outside world.
I’m actually just preparing to jump into the IM reference world here, and convince the other librarians that this is a necessary and wanted service. Anyone have any tips for me in this regard?
As for IT being Godlike. that is harsh. It is a hard line to walk. Where do you protect your systems and where do you allow open access? One you want open access to computers and the Internet, but at the same time, there is the reality of people who just want to do harm to any computer system they can get their hands on. We did a test at our library. Opened up a server and wifi with no protection. Within 30 minutes, the site was hacked and an illegal file sharing system was underway.
I think you need to talk to your IT department, instead of going in with the attitude they are Godlike. That type of attitude on seperates the IT department and you even further. They have a thin line to walk. They have to give the staff and the patrons what they want, but keep the entire system up and running as well. I have been in IT for 20 years, and I work in a library. My staff wants to allow patrons to use IM, and thats fine. It is just hard when on one hand they tell you patrons need this, patrons need that, then on the other hand tell you patrons will be confused because Microsoft updated the icon for Word between versions. (True story) Or that we couldn’t load Windows XP because the new Green Start button would confuse patrons and we needed to keep the Windows 2000 interface. (Another True Story) Talk to your IT department, but listen as well. If you don’t work with us and we don’t work with you. It is going to be the same old stuff again and again.
First, in my current job, our IT is our vendor and we do work with them; we gave the heave-ho to the vendor who wouldn’t work with us. So understand when I talk about IT I’m talking in general, having been IT, and having worked in places with IT over me where I encountered loads of attitude, some of it generated to distract people from the fact that the IT dept wasn’t doing a very good job.
Your anecdotes are all too familiar. “Patrons” are usually a euphemism for “staff.” I’ve been there. But the discussion was about IM for patrons, not about clueless librarians, so you seem to be venting in a different direction than the subject of my post. Far too many times librarians are told that something can’t be done with reasons as specious as you are invoking.
Also, if you read my original post, you will also see that one of my points was that librarians need to communicate better with IT departments. This often isn’t enough; when IT departments are too powerful, the best communication skills won’t help.
This is an uphill battle at my library. It is frustrating to be one of only a handful that see the importance and relevance of IM Reference at my institution. Heck, we do not even have a reliable email reference service. Amazing and sad!