If you visit this blog you may have noticed the Meebo graphic to your left. Clicking on that will take you to an IM portal. That's what Meebo does: it allows you to IM anyone you know who has an IM nickname or ID. No software to download, no unnecessary steps to connect with someone with an IM ID. Mine is from the Yahoo! network: freerangelibrarian. I use Meebo to talk to other SPLAT members, my students, family, and you–if you want to try it.
The folks at Meebo were pleasantly surprised to get a lot of love from librarians. From the Meebo blog, you can read the "Librarian Love" post and the comments that poured in after it. One librarian pointed out a wiki titled "Online Reference" where there's a section of libraries using Meebo for their reference service. I didn't see any Idaho libraries in there. Yet.