Exciting news from Meebo, the web-based Instant Messaging application. They have announced the availability of their platform for meebo application development. The platform provides access to the Meebo API and allows developers to create new applications that integrate with Meebo.

I think this has interesting possibilities for virtual reference services. Meebo is already famous in the library world for its MeeboME Widget. The Meebome Widget lets you add an IM client to any webpage. Users visiting your site can chat with you and they do not need any kind of special IM software or even have an IM account. Libraries have been using this to implement chat reference services.

Now imagine this. Imagine that whenever you, as a reference librarian, were chatting with a client via Meebo that you had a special window that let you enter in citation info for articles. Imagine that each time you entered citation info that it constructed a link to either your citation linker (e.g. SFX) or your remote access system (e.g. ezproxy). As you chat with the client and find articles and resources answering their questions, you could store each link on a “bookshelf”. When you were done you could click a button and send it to the chat session and also save it for future reference.

I am sure that we can come up with much more impressive ideas as well.