These tools (email, text messaging, IM, and webinars) are all old friends. My corporate library receives about 98% of all reference requests through email and we deliver results via email also. I liked the article about email productivity, especially the tip to turn off auto-check on your email--or set it to 20 minutes. My auto-check runs continuously and it is very distracting to see messages flashing across my screen all day long.
I use cell phone text messaging frequently to stay in touch with my teenagers. (They prefer me to text message rather than to call them). It's a convenient way to send a message when you really don't need two-way communication, e.g. "dental appointment @ 4 pm". Here I am sending a message. Well, the only real resemblance between this stock photo and me is that I wear glasses. After completing the Flickr activity, I feel like it's rather boring to post anything to my blog that doesn't have an image.
I've used IM in a library science course and it worked well, especially because my professor was young, enthusiastic, and available via IM almost 24/7. We've also recently loaded IM at work and we've tried it out among my work group. It's hard to remember to use it though, as old habits (yelling across the room, emailing someone who's in the next cubicle, etc.) are deeply ingrained.
Webinars are another frequent tool in my library. I participated in a MINITEX webinar on Advanced Web Searching last week and it was a great way to pick up some new ideas. We haven't developed any webinars within my work group, however, so maybe this is a tool we should consider using. One possibility is to offer instruction on serching our databases though webinars.
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