I had never used email with an integrated calendaring system (Groupwise) before I started working here this winter. Email, I get; folders, I get; address books, junk mail, all standard. I am still getting used to the work calendar where we send and receive not only appointments, but tasks and reminder notes. I can see the need and the usefulness of these tools (although I still like actual sticky notes for reminders): for instance, you can invite people to a mtg and book the mtg room at the same time. Its nice to have so many options for communicating and calendaring, but sometimes it gets confusing when people use it in different ways.
IM
I haven't personally used IMing much, but have watched my kids do it. It was especially fun one day when each of my 3 kids was on a big iMac in the same room, they were all on with iSight. On each of their screens was streaming video of each other and 2 more friends. My niece and I were using Facebook's version of IMing, we happened to see that we were both on facebook looking at photos - a fun way to say "hey".
I can see that it could be a useful reference tool. It would be a nice quick way to get an immediate answer to something. However, I can also see that it might get in the way of actual face-to-face reference work if you have an im query at the same time.
Text Messaging
I'll be doing more of this this summer when we get a phone for our kids. I know a bit of the lingo, and I'm sure we'll make some up amongst my family.
Library use: It would be cool to send reminder and reserves notices by Text Messaging.
Web Conferencing
I've looked at a prerecorded web conference and have a couple of them planned. I think web conferences can be a good way to "attend" on a specific topic, but I've also experienced the frustration with the technical aspects.
