Monecia Samuel: M.S.L.S., College Librarian; The College of Westchester, White Plains, New York
Staff training tips:
- Create a chat policy
- Train the library’s student employees
- Chat hours should be student friendly
- Permit people who staff the service from home to use these hours as flex time
Busiest from 3-5pm and 7-11pm. Don’t chat before, during or after lunch, or during dinner.
Alex R. Hodges, Jonathan Silberman, Patricia J. West
History (Alex): piloted IM in Spring 2006
Marketing (Jonathan): branding, ubiquitous, used ’sexy’ posters, $1500 since 2006.
The Future (Patricia): only AIM in the beginning, then MeeboMe widget, Meebo VoIP and SMS/Texting (sound quality?), push for SMS, E-Marketing, nice marketing logos!
Conclusion (Patricia): love service, lots of positive anecdotal evidence, empirical evidence, and able to achieve high impact at a low cost.
Service is busiest from 1-3(?). Evening hours providers can work from at home.
Scripting available to have MeeboMe widget disappear when librarian is offline! 
MeeboMe same-day transcript retention(?)
Use AIM hack to monitor SMS through Meebo!
hodges jsilber and pjwest all at american dot edu