Folder to binder

There are ten days until the last day of class. Cabin fever, also known as I can not wait until the term is over, has hit everyone with a vengeance. As one professor succinctly put it last week, we are all just sick of each other. To that point, the library instituted end of term extended hours yesterday and will remain open until 2:00 am Sunday through Thursdays. Students may use the library as a place; no circulation or reference services are available after midnight, but space and computers for studying and group work are. Ultimately, it's a refuge for peace and quiet away from the dorms.

My end of term angst surprisingly enough centers on the web committee (what? the library page is not done yet?) and its members inherent resistance to make a decision. Last week we spent an hour and a half discussing vocabulary for items to be placed in the "find" category. I still do not know what we will be finding. On the plus side, my new web page binder is pretty, organized, and chock full of notes and information. I have sections devoted to:

• Committee meeting notes
• Site map notes
  
• Library Google account resources
  
• Widget & page tool samples
• Web statistic information
  
• Dreamweaver CS3 & Contribute
• Meebo account information
  
• Chat marketing, integration & policy statements
• Space for more information
  

(I also just had the oddest tasting cookie, I think it was ginger with chocolate and marshmallow. Possibly a smores cookie, but I digress.) The more information area looks to be filled with samples of other academic library chat icon buttons. I have been doing research on what people are using on their main pages to attract patrons to IM/chat and other forms of library reference and research help. There seems to be a couple of recurring themes, one using the icon showing a person reaching out of a computer monitor to help and the other featuring different IM client logos. Not sure that we want to advocate using a specific IM client instead of our Meebo chat, I am leaning more towards an appropriate clip art icon with our service name.

Now? I'm to meet with the boss and help him work with Contribute and web pages. I am not sure if he wants to make a word document into an html page or if he wants to insert a word document/handout into an existing page. I hope it is the latter and suspect it is the former.

While I was out

The odd thing about taking vacation time during spring break is there are still people on campus; offices were open, the library was open, and the IT department was not only open, but also updating unsuspecting vacationing librarian's computers. It's always a bit disconcerting to wander in to my office after a break or vacation and find an IT handout on top of my computer and a "call me if you have any problems" message attached.

A few weeks ago we were notified IT was going to begin migrating to Microsoft Active Directory. In all honesty I paid little heed to the notice other than to correctly file it so I would have the directions when it happened. As luck would have it, other than having to choose a new password (and one that was complex enough for the server), all went well. All I have to do is remember the password when logging into the system tomorrow.

What other fun things needed my attention? I waded through 300+ email messages (someday I will learn to sign off list serv when on vacation), remembered to send payroll through so my students get a check this week, talked to financial aid to find out why a student's federal work study monies were suddenly significantly less than detailed at the beginning of the academic year, and opened much snail mail that accumulated in my mail box. There was fun stuff as well! My Ellison Die order arrived, along with another Prestige Pro freebie machine (Ellison has great coupons & promotions), and I was able to try out the new items, take a picture, and post it on the resource center blog for all to see. This is always money well spent. In fact, three student lead tours came through the resource center this morning and each one mentioned the die cut machines.

I have heard rumors there were actual chat sessions via the new Meebo IM widget on the library web page. I put it on my resource center update for the students and will probably send info to some of my buddies in the college of education (especially since there will be students looking for help finding book reviews soon) to talk it up with more word-of-mouth advertising. Let's get this thing moving!

Now? Lunch is over and my GA just called to say the cash register is giving her fits, seems it does not want to calculate sales tax.

Testing IM over break

In the midst of all the snow excitement I forgot to mention library web page updates are currently in place for the new IM service, Ask Us. Before closing on Friday I tweaked the new IM page by adding the following note: "Navigating away from this IM page or closing your browser will effectively end your chat/IM session." While most students using the service will undoubtedly have multiple windows open, we felt it necessary to place this notice for those who may not. I added the IM service to our "what's new" page and then placed it prominently on the main library page. Allowing for the two hour staging server time, these changes were effectively in place by 5:00 pm on Friday and will be ready for a test run during spring break.

A quick check this evening shows all three pages reflect the changes made. My dial up connection is having issues with connecting to Meebo (sigh), so I'll have to email my partner in crime and have her check things on Monday morning. Another oddity? Using IE6 this evening our widget is a different color, does not reflect the change in name we instituted, and is basically nasty. Viewing the page with Mozilla there are no problems.

In addition to email, I left two offline Meebo messages. May as well use the technology!

IM ready

Following extensive discussion and philosophical discourse regarding the necessity, use and feasibility of IM/chat services for academic library reference, we are now officially "live" with the library's new Ask Us! IM reference service. The updated help and chat page were sent to the staging server around 11:30 am; when I refreshed my browser at 1:30 pm, all was well. As soon as lunch is over, my partner in crime and I will do a widget test run, followed shortly by an email notification to all librarians complete with login reminders, web addresses, and information regarding basic statistics we would like to collect.

We have a soft marketing and word-of-mouth target strategy planned. Tomorrow, I have permission to add a "new" link to the main library page. It will then be featured on the "What's new" page and link to the existing help section of the library web site. The director also plans to place a blurb in the weekly student email that will highlight the new service. Additionally, next week is spring break. There will be ample opportunity for librarians to play with the technology and become more comfortable with it's use.

This is a major step for our library. Moving several librarians out of their safe areas, dragging them into a bit of library 2.0 technology, has been a challenge. I am crossing my fingers that students will utilize the service and prove it is a viable resource to offer.

New day, new widget

In what could be termed a woman verses machine scenario, I am pleased to report victory (of sorts). This morning I completed registration for a library AIM account to utilize in Meebo, but only after succumbing to the software registration demand. After receiving the same error message for creating a screen name - again and again - I determined it would be simpler to let it think it won; I downloaded the IM software, created an account, successfully imported the account information to the library Meebo account, verified it worked, and deleted the IM software from the computer. We now have three IM systems attached to our Meebo account and are ready to demonstrate the 2.0 technology at next weeks librarian meeting.

Next on my agenda is creating different widgets to enhance the library web site re-design. Students have asked for a calendar widget, something to display daily library hours and activities being held in the library (instruction classes, tours, use of the facility). Both Google and Yahoo! have calendar options that could be the basis for a widget fulfilling this request. Creation of library IM accounts in Google and Yahoo! to use with Meebo means we have access to their calendar capabilities as well.

I worked this afternoon with Google calendar and was less than satisfied with the results. After using Google's calendar options for widgets, I determined it would be simpler to use the calendar feed to create a supplementary widget script. As luck would have it, one of the library conference sessions I attended in late October features such a resource: Feed2JS or Feed to JavaScript. Easy to use, the results were not what I anticipated. I need to spend a bit more time with this web tool. I will do tests with both of the calendar functions, create sample widgets from each, and post them on the sample web site for group critique.

I would like to suggest a social bookmarking tool, such as del.icio.us, to create topic clouds for specific Internet resources but wonder if IM, chat, and a bold push for a library news blog will be more than the group can handle.

I realize recent posts have been technology topic heavy. Due mostly to my daily trials and tribulations with the library web site re-design, I spend a lot of time thinking about what has been accomplished and what yet needs to be done, using this blog as a sounding board. My brain is full of text and widgets and IM and chatting. I have been reading and ordering juvenile books, but with the exception of one discussion waiting patiently for days in blog draft format, have not taken the time to digest and post reviews. My ALA midwinter tote bag full of ARC's is sitting in my living room taunting me and my pile of checked out library books is overdue (I did fix that today). I am at an all time low with only four books on my record. This too shall pass. I work this weekend and have planned collection development lists and predict serious damage being made to remaining budgets. It will be a break from the fun, but draining, technology.

Progress: Meebo and me

Early morning discussions with the boss and my IM/chat partner in crime resulted in continued progress and practice using Meebo and the Meebo Me widget and a way to move forward with the library web page redesign as we await delivery of the template. A slight web epiphany, realization that we could move forward with organization and vocabulary for sections within the editable region of the template, led me to ask if it would be appropriate for me to send email designed to promote discussion regarding main page headers and secondary sections contained within the main headers. A verbal "okay" from the boss, a promise to send the email for vetting before it goes to the team from me, and presto; a way to move forward. I asked each librarian to look at current web site headers (there are five of them) and various web sites we targeted as appealing in terms of layout/organization and use of vocabulary. Combined with the current library site map listing (updated as of 10 am this morning), use these tools to compile a list of potential main page information headers and secondary resources. We do not meet again until a week from Wednesday. This provides over ten days of rumination time. I might be able to start creating pages now and apply the template when it arrives.

Naturally I updated the webliography pages charting a history of the redesign progress; this included additional testing of the Meebo Me widget and screen shots to show the rest of the web committee how Meebo interface appears from the both the librarian and patron perspective. This meant screen shots with live users. Before starting I checked with the other chat librarian to be sure she did not want to save the visuals for our demonstration during next week's librarian meeting. We were both relatively sure chances of anyone other than us (and maybe the director) looking at the project were slim (no sarcasm intended, just a statement) and moved forward. I am going to ask her to look over the text and let me know what might need to be added.

It is exciting to get everything in place. I would still like to add one more IM service to our Meebo account, but today AIM was giving me fits. Looking this evening it appears they have done a site re-design as well and, fingers crossed, I may be able to accomplish the last objective after all.

Tomorrow after the Mock Caldecott session, I hope to work a bit on the graphics for our web site help button.

More Meebo & IM

Late Friday afternoon marked the success of adding a Meebo Me widget to my personal web site, the same place I am housing all of the web design discussion, changes, and samples. This is the perfect place for practice because the page is directly on university server space and no ftp or staging server is needed; once I hit save everything on the page is live. A short celebratory exclamation was appropriate (woo-hoo) and I contacted two other librarians, via IM, to test out the page. It was fun, informative, and we learned a few interesting things:

• If one or more patrons types in a question at the same time, simultaneous IM windows open. The person answering IM questions will do double duty.
• It helps if users close out of/leave the page featuring chat when they finish. Otherwise the next person may need to refresh or clean out their cache to open a "new" session.
• The widget does indeed make an annoying sound (it can be turned off) when the IM window is activiated and when the patron answers your query. On the plus side, this does make it easier to keep more than one window open for IM/chat.
• The active IM window is highlighted, again making it easier to distinguish when a new session is opened.
• It is possible to put up more than one widget. This will allow us to create different size feature widgets for different pages. Some pages easily facilitate larger windows while others have less available real estate for the feature.
• From a design standpoint, we were able to customize both the title of the IM/chat window on the Meebo Me widget and the colors.

After the initial thrill of "it works" wore off, we spent a few minutes conference chatting with Yahoo! Messenger discussing how the widget looked from both the user and patron end. All in all it was a very successful, and fun, afternoon. Monday I want to take time to finesse the colors and widget title some on the internal page. I also need to add text description of what widget feature entails as far as providing reference may be concerned.

With a bit of luck, the sell will not be as difficult as imagined ... one can only hope.

Playing to learn

For anyone who wondered about peer pressure ending after high school, though as adults we prefer to call it healthy competition, scrap that idea. After chatting amongst ourselves for a day, my IM co-hort in crime suddenly had an avatar pictured in her IM box. Being a visual person, it automatically caught my attention and being a tech nerd and healthily competitive, I determined I had to have one.

Yahoo! Messengar has a very cool option within their requisite email account where users can design avatars called Yahoo Avatars. Choose, dress, acessorize, and place their into IM. I spent a good half hour picking clothes, hair, eye color, accessories (glasses, scarf, and earrings), and a location for my avatar (pictured above). No, we will not be using avatars in Meebo chat. But, the more we play with the Yahoo IM/chat, the more comfortable we become in the environment. Already the merry band of chatters has increased from two to four. And after being chastized for having an avatar, I was soon contated via IM for help on how to create one (see, peer pressure - er - healthy competition, feeding off of each other's enthusiasm).

This morning I updated our progress on the web page I created for that purpose. While the chat leader invites everyone to a conference chat later this afternoon, I will be busily adding library accounts with Yahoo, Aim, and MSN in preparation for our Meebo chat test page. If we can get this much ready today, early next week we will be able to test the IM client and have not only something to report at the staff meeting, but also something to demonstrate. So, if anyone walked by my open office door today they were likely to see me working on web pages, researching academic libraries that use Meebo, and happily chatting with librarians; playing to learn.

You know what? I'm really liking my little librarian avatar and may replace my photo with her ...

Meebo, who-go?

Today's late lunch was precipitated by an impromptu meeting with the librarian in charge of exploring IM and/or Chat for the new library web page. Yesterday morning I broached my reserves about using Pidgin as a multi-client IM server for the library web page. After reading the information and doing additional research (beyond my obviously whining Pidgin poop post), it became apparent using the product in the way we desired would take someone more skilled in technology than I. This has nothing to do with product quality and everything to do with ease of use.

During this meeting, we planned to discuss several points that would need to be raised at a late afternoon staff meeting. First and foremost, there are several librarians on staff who do not know what IM is and how it could be used for possible reference applications. Our recommendation to the director is that everyone download Yahoo! Messsenger to their computers, add each other as a work buddy, and set aside a time each week to work with the software. Secondly, we reported more time would be needed for us to determine the most effective way to utilize Meebo within the library web page. We need to understand more about the software, how we plan to recommend it be used (chat or IM?), and opportunity to develope a strategy of sorts for implementation.

To begin working with IM, and eventually Meebo, I downloaded Yahoo! Messenger to my work computer and added both a friend (library director at another university)and work "buddy" to my IM list. I spent a good hour chatting with them both while getting back in to the rhythm needed to work in an IM/chat environment. A nice feature I noticed immediately with Yahoo! Messengerwas the area directly below my open IM window that noted the other person was typing. Why was that important? Prior experience with library chat had it's quirks; among them lengthy pauses between chatters (librarian and patron) that sometimes led to the eiter party typing in, "hello, are you still there?" Capability to note that the other person is writing their response is an indication to wait for an answer before entering more information and ultimately saves time.

During the meeting our update was recieved with mixed reviews; those who are very interested in exploring the situation and those who feel there is no need to incorporate more than phone numbers and email on the library help page. This is a project we need to have everyone behind for it to be successful. Two or three librarians with interest will not be able to make enough of an impact. We now have two weeks to individually strong arm the other librarians (okay, gently convince) to try the general IM client. Our next meeting will be in an instruction classroom providing us the opportunity to demonstrate usage.

More about Meebo:

• PC World: Website of the week
• PC World: The 100 Best Products of 2007 (#74)
• PC World Meebo Review

Meebo logo © Meebo

Pidgin poop

Yes, I could have tried a little harder or possibly dug a bit deeper through my endless repertoire of charming post titles and found a more subtle and nuanced caption for this entry, but after trying on four different occasions this morning and afternoon to download FAQ's and support from the Pidgin web site, my creative wordsmithing was simply cranky. A quick refresher, we are hoping to utilize instant messaging and/or chat functions within the new library web page. One of the reference librarians has been researching different venues and after a discussion late last week the tentative decision was to use Pidgin, "a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once," to facilitate the process.

To be fair, I had no problems locating the web site, following the download process, or opening the IM client. But in order to use this for the library web site, I need to be able to locate the FAQ's and developer's page with instructions on how to incorporate the widget. I admit to being a bit Monday-brain-dead and understand the software in question has many people using it and accessing the FAQ's, it was frustrating to continually be bumped off the site before a simple wiki page loaded (sorry, a bit carried away with the italics option this evening).

The boss was taking both the Pidgin and Meebo to an IT meeting this afternoon for input regarding our tentative decision for a multi-tasking IM client. Tomorrow might bring a different software selection.

On another note, logging in this evening I noticed this is post number 499! Good thing I didn't title post number 500 with poop.

Note: Pigeon logo © Pidgin.im