Library H3lp Take 2

I am very excited. I have learned several things this evening:

• I figured out how to customize a "skin" for an embedded chat widget. Here's what I made (with school colors!):
  
  
• I learned how to save said widget for future use. This was, for me, more complicated than it probably needed to be.


• I was stumped with how to practice the code, since I don't have access to any web servers. Thankfully, a library school friend responded to my Twitter/Facebook plea for help by pointing out that I could save the html document on my local computer, then just open it with a browser to see how it looks. Brilliant!


• At that point, I generated the document, but only got the html "Chat is offline" message, and was thinking, "But I'm signed in! A librarian is available! What's wrong?" Due to this conundrum, I also finally learned that


• You have to sign into the webchat client to be online as a librarian--not just the administrative functions. I now have a better understanding of the different "faces" of Library H3lp.

My next goal is to figure out how to set up the different "roll-over" service possibilities so that, after we (hopefully) get the service up, no patrons will see the "Chat is offline" message.

I'm meeting with some of the other librarians later this week; hopefully what I've learned so far will help convince them of the feasibility of this service!