Reference Chat

CHAT Reference is suitable for questions that require short, specific answers such as factual or biographical, bibliographic citation verification or UL holdings.

CHAT Reference Hours are Monday – Friday, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Temporary lapses in service may occur. When chat is not available, please use our online reference question form.

INSTRUCTIONS: You must have AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) or compatible AIM clients (e.g., GAIM or Trillian) installed on your computer to use this service. It is free software. University Libraries' computers have AIM and GAIM installed.

If you are using AIM:
- First, sign on to your AIM account.
- Enter Reference CHAT Room. Clicking on this link should open an AIM Explorer window and automatically paste the UNMULib chatroom name (aim:gochat?roomname=UNMULib) in the window as well as open up a chat window to the UNMULib chatroom. If this doesn't occur, you may have to do it manually.

If you are using GAIM, Trillian, or other compatible AIM clients, please add our CHAT Room - UNMULib -to your Buddy List.
Double clicking the CHAT Room from the Buddy List logs you into the CHAT Room automatically.

When you enter the CHAT Room, please type a greeting or question and wait. It may take a minute or two for a librarian to begin chatting. Library staff from all of the UL branches, and the Center for Southwest Research will be staffing this service. Check the listing to the right in the CHAT Room window; if there are no other names listed besides yours, then the service is temporarily unavailable.

CHAT logs may be captured for training and evaluation purposes. Use of this service implies that you accept these terms and conditions.

If you are unable to log into the CHAT Room during CHAT Reference hours, and your problem is not addressed on this page, please contact us at one of the reference desks.