Sunday January 21, 2007 at ALA Midwinter in Seattle, I hosted an unofficial event, Collaborative Virtual Reference and Enterprise Instant Messaging. This is the third part in a series describing what I talked about and what the results of the meeting were.
Start with parts one or two if you want.
Instant Messaging and Enterprise IM
Instant messaging or IM is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet.
-Wikipedia
If you are familiar with commercial instant messaging networks such as AOL instant messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger, think of Enterprise Instant Messaging software as instant messaging on local networks.
Companies and other organizations, including universities and government agencies, often use Enterprise IM in lieu of commercial instant messaging networks to ensure privacy and security on their networks.
Publicly traded companies that need to keep accurate audit trails under the Sarbanes-Oxley act, and companies and agencies of all kinds needing to keep medical records private under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act all use Enterprise Instant Messaging. Some libraries do too.
There are four core concepts in Instant Messaging that I want us to understand. This is maybe a refresher for some readers, so I will try to illustrate how the state of the art in chat/IM technology is different than what we use in virtual reference.
IM core concept #1, IM network structure
As a rule, commercial IM networks do not play nice, with the notable exception that MSN and Yahoo! users are supposed to be connected to one another.
In order for us to use instant messaging, me and you have to be use the same IM provider. This is about where virtual reference software is, except the patron and librarian probably never think about how they're using the same service.
Contrast this to how e-mail works. When you send me e-mail, your e-mail outbox talks to your e-mail service, which talks to my e-mail service, which talks to my e-mail inbox. This interoperability works because of the much loved and hated de facto standard for electronic mail, SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol).
Besides allowing for interoperability, SMTP gives individual organizations local control over their e-mail services and also allows for good old fashioned capitalist competition among software companies and service providers.
Some companies that provide enterprise IM software for local IM networks are betting that IM communication will eventually take a form similar to e-mail by having everyone use a protocol called XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol). XMPP is sometimes referred to as Jabber, after the popular service that utilizes it.
Because XMPP is an "open standard", organizations or communities wishing to offer an IM network have a framework to start with and lots of software to choose from. Imagine, someday, every organization that has an e-mail server may also have an IM server using XMPP. As with e-mail, we'll love the interoperability and hate the spam.
At least, that's one thing that could happen. AOL introduced IM on a large scale and the rumor is it is still the most widely use IM network in the US, so they might have more to gain by bullying than by playing nice with XMPP.
The good news is that IM networks do talk to each other sometimes, as with Microsoft and Yahoo!. AOL and Apple have had a little deal, and all kinds of people reverse engineer commercial IM networks in order to get connected to them.
Of course, Enterprise IM/XMPP software providers have also gotten their hooks into commercial IM networks, both through reverse engineering and explicit licenses. If virtual reference software is going to do the same, there is a lot of existing work we can build on.
IM core concept #2, presence
Instant messaging networks work on the idea of presence.
In IM, each patron keeps a "buddy list" of people they communicate with. The list shows which buddies are off-line and which are online, which are present. A patron who has the library as a buddy will be notified when the library is available to provide service.
Presence can also be discrete. I can make my presence known to the world, or only to my buddies or a certain set of co-workers. I can tell them I am busy, or away from my computer, or on the phone, or listening to my favorite song.
With presence comes trust. If a patron can see which librarians are online, she can choose which librarian to chat with.
In a face to face model, this is a bit like waiting for your favorite barista to be on the espresso machine before ordering your shots, creepy implications and all.
We see patrons with a need to trust librarians all the time. It is hard for patrons to ask reference questions that relate to them personally, so they might first ask something benign like "how many books can I check out?". Once the librarian is trusted, the real question follows.
In web-based virtual reference chat software, we take no advantage of presence. Patrons can't choose who they talk to, they can only try their luck with who might be online.
At this service, we fake presence a little by hooking our schedule up to an RSS feed, showing how many librarians from Oregon are scheduled to be online at any moment. The feed displays on this blog and our about page.
IM core concept #3, user as center
If you follow the library IM literature, you hear a lot about "going where the users are". Usually, this means joining communities and networks that our patrons use instead of making the patron come to the library for all of that library goodness.
For both pictures below, green represents the library and the other colors represent different kinds of patrons.
In a traditional service model, everybody comes to the library (or library website) for service.
With knowledge of the presence of her buddies, the patron becomes the center of her own network.
If you've used any kind of library virtual reference software besides instant messaging, you already know that they uses the model shown in the first picture.
IM core concept #4, instantaneity
Part of the appeal that instant messaging is due to it's instantaneity. On average, when I am having an IM conversation, a message gets sent every 16 seconds. In our virtual reference software, a message is sent every 38 seconds.
I discussed the study I did in depth last week.
But why?
Part of the issue is definitely scale. When we use a commercial IM network to communicate, that commercial entity has dozens or hundreds or thousands of servers to handle all of their IM traffic. In contrast, a library typically shares a single chat server with dozens or hundreds or thousands of other libraries.
Libraries have three or four options for chat software which no one, so far as I know, are completely satisfied with. But chat and IM software is not a library specific technology. Why are we stuck to the library-specific vendors?
IM vs. SMS/Text messaging
Some library professionals I've spoken with wonder if instant messaging is a bandwagon worth jumping on to. According to the Pew Internet and American Life project, 35% of people who go online also use SMS (Text Messaging) and 11% of them use it everyday. Pew also reports that 39% of people who go online use IM, though only 10% use it every day (see Pew's reports on Online Activities - Total and Online Activities - Daily).
The question is, will our patrons' communication habits shift to a different format? Absolutely.
Which, is why it is so important to have a model for public service that is extensible - integrated but not interdependent. I think Enterprise IM could be a core component.
Why libraries should explore Enterprise IM
- Libraries should have the opportunity to expand virtual reference services into instant messaging, mobile phones, and anywhere else.
- Virtual reference software should be as easy to use and learn as Instant Messaging
- Open source software options would allow libraries to customize virtual reference tools.
- Libraries need more control over patron data generated in virtual reference transactions
- Enterprise Instant Messaging software may be more affordable than existing virtual reference products available in the library marketplace
Continued in part 4, the need to innovate.
