IM in State Government

NASCIO, which I assume stands for the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, published TLK2UL8R: The Privacy Implications of Instant and Text Messaging Technologies in State Government. The research brief discusses the threats to network security posed by worms and spim, possible circumvention of network protection, and policy implications.

The report recommends that existing email policies should be reviewed and expanded to cover chat technologies. Enterprise-grade IM services are favored over commercial solutions because they offer more tools for security and enable the archiving of conversations (in keeping with records retention laws). The report comes close to endorsing policies that forbid the use of commercial IM clients on government computers.

Certainly an important discussion. But libraries are only just beginning to see the advantages of IM as a way to reach non-traditional users, and I wouldn't want to be in the position of telling them they can't use the state's network to offer chat reference services.

OPLIN work rules encourage/require us to be logged into an instant messenger client. We've found it to be a very useful tool: keeping our mobile staff in close communication, allowing easy communication and collaboration with partners across the statewide network.