Instant Messaging (Thing 7)

My personal email is through AOL so I have used the AOL instant messaging for a while now. I don't really use it often but I have used it if I am online late at night and have a question for a friend. If I see they are online, I just send them an IM instead of emailing them. I have also used it to ask a question when I  have been on a company website. I would much rather IM a customer service rep and receive my answer in seconds rather than sitting on hold for 10 minutes. I have never used Communicator here at work so I just sent Claudia a message. I went ahead and added the youth staff under my contacts. Claudia and Sarah were the only two that showed they were 'available' and the others said they were away, offline, or out of office. I think this would be a very useful tool to communicate with employees if everyone was 'available'. I sent an IM on the Belk Library site and they answered my question in just seconds. Pretty impressive. I see that we have an "Ask a Libriarian' form on our Frisco Library website that works as an email and gets answered in 48 hours. The IM option would be a nice addition (and much quicker for the patron) but I am not sure how often it would get used. It would be interesting to see how many IM's we would receive on a daily basis if it was available for our patrons to ask questions.