WebEx is in Our Future...

This afternoon, Eileen O'Shea from Infopeople got back to me and said that they would be happy to include ILS in a pilot project allowing some library systems access to their WebEx license.

In essence, what this means to us is that for at least one year, we will have access to using WebEx for meetings, trainings and workshops (and however else we might want to try and use it). And Eileen said we would have basically unlimited access to not only the WebEx "training" module (which is similar in format to the Infopeople webinars in that there is a presenter who does the talking, shares their computer screen, and all communication is done electronically via either chat or email) but also the "meeting" module, where everyone calls into a central phone number and we could have up to a 1,000 person conference call (with the ability to share computer screens. Actually, depending on your bandwidth, web cams could also be utilized in this module).

Eileen has scheduled an initial training session for us to learn more about the back end of WebEx (using WebEx naturally!) on Friday, February 8th starting at 10am. (Should last around 90 minutes). I, along with two of my tech librarians are going to participate in this training but if there are any other people in ILS who would like to learn more about WebEx, please get back to me and I will try to include you in this training.

Although it is too soon to try and do a WebEx meeting, I would say that within the next three to six months, the Admin Council should probably set the tone for the rest of the system and be the first committee to have a virtual meeting.

WebEx will definitely be on the agenda for the next Admin Council meeting on 3/12.