Thing 12/Im and VBPL

I talked to Matthew and Marti who are very ppositive about VBPL's offering IM to the public. They especially feel that our present and future teens are much more comfortable and willing to communicate with us using IM versus face to face. I also looked through the IM notebook in Telephone Reference and read sample qustions, saw statistics etc.

I went to the VBPL sebsite at 3:10 to ask my own question using IM but it was not on. I called the party who was suppossed to be on to remind them to start. They did; I asked a question but had to wait 6 minutes to get a reply that they did not have the answer to my question about a program but they could find out. I replied but had to sign off before they replied back. So I was not overly impressed due to the slowness of the process. It would have been much easier and faster to pick up the phone and dial.

I do think IM and the library is a good mix for some situations - teens; short, factual questions about hours, programs, account status etc. I would expect some customers not to wait around for an answer if the library staff took to long to respond.