Browser-based chat champ Meebo recently introduced its new Community IM service. Designed for social networking communities, the taskbar-like interface across the bottom of the browser window will be instantly recognizable to Facebook users.
Buddy List on PopSugar:
IM conversation on Flixster:
This kind of service should be easily adaptable to a library environment. Instead of showing which "Buddies" are currently online, which on sites like Flixster refers to a user's Friends or Contacts within the network, a library's implementation could show which Librarians are currently online and available to provide assistance. Something like this:
A re-imagined YLS Library website w/Community IM reference (click to enlarge):
A virtual reference implementation such as this might not fit into Meebo's immediate plans, but using Ajax and XMPP, couldn't a web developer with a lot of free time implement this kind of thing without Meebo? It would certainly be superior to the current MeeboMe widgets used by so many libraries, as Facebook style IM reference would require less screen real estate, would appear on every page of a site, and chat history/sessions would persist as a user navigated to other pages on the site.
Check out this video for a demo of what Flickr is doing with Meebo Community IM:
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