IM that IM

I just got finished learning about instant messaging and I have to say that I like what I heard so far.
From the information I gathered in the assigned articles it seems like IM would be a god-send to a reference librarian. It's not like the phone where someone might tell a patron to go to a particular screen by clicking such and such link to whcih the patron responds "I don't see the link." With IM all the librarian would have to do is send the person the link and they would recieve it almost immediately depending on the availability of said librarian. You can show people what it is that you're talking about by sending them photos or using a webcam. Basically it seems like the perfect tool for any library, but it isn't necesarily.
I can see how it can be useful for reference, but I think it may be hard to impliment it on more than that practical level. There are the issues of security and accountability with IM, and besides that with everything that librarians have to deal with in day I don't know how they could manange to fit IM into their schedule. Most likely they are going to focus their time and energy on those patrons who are standing right in front of their face than on the faceless users online.
Libraries should care about IM to some extent. As a practical tool for improving communication between patrons and co-workers, but I don't think that any library has to fear the loss of the millenial generation by refusing to offer IM. IM is like a quick fix. It solves an immediate problem of communication between two or more people immedieately and it's relatively painless to users in most cases. But I just don't think of libraries as being "quick fixes" they always seemed like more of a place for research and exploration in general and I think that that should be respeceted as well. Millenials are suppossed to want information quickly. "I want it right here right now with little or no cost to me," that's the attitude generally ascribed to them, "it's not a technology, it's an accessory," information, information information, and everyone has been accomaditing us. The business world, the entertainment world, every spehere of life seems to be trying to fill this demand for more information more readily: and they're good at it. RSS feeds, instant messging, blogs, podcasts. I think that people of the millenial generation and my own might be getting a little tired of the noise. We are bombarded with information constatntly. I bet half of the reason that e-mail is falling out of style (as several of the articles claimed) is because no one has time to check and absorb all of the endless information. And what's worse all of its coming a mile a minute becuase everyone assumes that this generation wants that. And I have to say that in some cases that rings true. I start verbally abusing my computer in the worst ways when it takes me more than two seconds to get online, but libraries are different. A library is a place where you can come in, relax a little bit, and for once sample the information that you want rather than having it jump off the shelf at you. I think people especially our techonology crazy generation need at least one place where everything that they're being bombarded with is voluntary. So I say keep IM around (yes even in libraries) as a back-up to e-mails and for reference when patrons need it. But keep the library too. That whole make new things but keep the old, one is silver the other is gold.