Anatomy of a Blog: Let's Chat!

Now that you know what a widget is and have been introduced to the Wish List widget on our blog, I'd like to acquaint you with the Meebo chat widget in our sidebar. You should see a chat box on the right side of the blog that says Ask Us. This chat box is available for you to type in brief library or research questions and get answers in real time.

Since we do not monitor the chat box 24/7, look to see if a librarian is available to "chat" before typing in the chat box. The conversation balloon will be green and say "Darling Library is online" if a librarian is available. The conversation balloon will be red and say "Darling Library is offline" if there is no one to respond.

Type your query into the box that says "Type here and hit enter to send a private message." After a brief moment you should see a response appear in the box directly above your typed message.

Meebo assigns you a guest nickname when you type in our chat box. The guest nickname in the example to the right is meeboguest88326. You may remain anonymous and use the assigned nickname, or you can click "edit nickname" and change it to something more personal.

You do not have to have a Meebo account to use our chat box, but if you would like to sign up for a Meebo account and create your own chat box for your blog or web page simply click the get meebo link that appears in the lower right corner of our chat box.

The speaker icon in the bottom left corner of our chat box allows you to either allow sound or mute sound while using the Meebo chat box. Leave the audio on when you minimize the page with our chat box and you will be alerted with a sound when someone responds to your query.

Find out more about Meebo here.