meebo

I haven't ever really used IM, other than the internal Exodus thing and chatting with my friend Justin through Gmail, and I really am not impressed with it. My wife loves it and sits across the room from friends, messaging away to each other, but the allure eludes me. I tried meebo, thought the concept was cool, but then realized that I don't know anybody s messaging account, and therefore am unable to locate them. Enough about me. For the library, I think that it would work nicely to ask a quick question, an in depth reference question or make a book request, rather than make a phone call. The problem I see is in the staffing. Would one person sit at the messaging computer, writing request after request and passing it to someone else to work on while they write down another request, or would there be multiple people answering messages? Or, are the patrons like me, and never use instant messaging except to see if someone is in so that I can call them?