The Instant Messaging Phenomenon

This weeks course was great! Mainly because these are all technologies that I have used very regularly for many years. Instant Messaging was first introduced to me in high school, everyone had MSN Messenger and it was a great way to keep us entertained and in touch.
There are huge possibilities for libraries to use IM to complete reference enquiries... or any other enquiries for that matter. Working out who would be responsibile (or multiple people to be responsibile) for the conversations, ensuring enquiries get answered in a timely matter, and generally when a branch is busy, and the enquiry is not in your face, ie. a person at the counter, or a phone ringing; the enquiry may end up being neglected. To combat this, IM enquiries could be dealt with at a Head Office level, but there are still times in each day, and whole days where limited staff are available.
Skype. I can see the potential in eliminating our current phone system all together and merging to Skype. Calls and messages could be fielded by a receptionist and passed onto the appropriate staff member (taking into account that the functionality would need to be available in skype for business). The potential is certainly there. Realistically since we are linked with our council's phone system, unless they change, then our library service will not change. But I will continue to dream of such a world where we function over IP.

Google Docs, Rocks!

The first one to really stand out at me was the tracking of who read the document and when. I find myself often frustrated when I don't get the input required from some staff, and I know that they open their emails, but whether they go to the extent of actually looking at the documents, I'm not sure - contributing is a whole other level. I can see this feature being very useful.

...And the always handy availability of past versions. I try and save all of my work in versions, but not even having to think about it is definitely a bonus!

Tips to share (other than those posted above)...
Allowing people to sign in and edit a document without actually having a google account. Very handy! I tend to have that many accounts and passwords that i start to lose track of which one goes where. So i can imagine the frustration for staff when I want to start collaborating with Google Docs and the response I get is "But I don't wanna have a gmail account" - This feature does open up potential security risks with outside parties possibly contributing in a destructive rather then constructive manner.