Thus far, the only thing stopping me from switching all of my email accounts to Gmail accounts was the lack of IMAP access. I have 3 different computers from which I regularly access all of my mail accounts. When I read or delete or file an email on one machine, I need the change to show up on the other machines, too. IMAP is essential for this to work smoothly.

IMAP is also essential for the smooth running of an email-based reference service in which several librarians all access questions from the same mail account.

My two main non-work email accounts are with Netzero and Gmail. Neither of these accounts offer IMAP, so I forward all mail in these accounts to corresponding addresses on an IMAP server I run myself. This accomplishes what I need but adds an extra layer that increases the risk of complication -- particularly because I run the server myself.

Starting tonight, Gmail appears to be offering users IMAP access to their mail. According to Download Squad, IMAP instructions are beginning to appear in both the settings and help sections of the Gmail site.

Armed with this information, I logged into one of my Gmail accounts (the one listed over in the sidebar of this site), but IMAP wasn't available. I then logged into a different Gmail account and was ecstatic to find IMAP available in my settings. Not only does this eliminate an extra layer of potential error to my mail, but ensures that someone better qualified than me is running the server.

This does not, however, solve all my email problems. At work, we recently switched to Exchange Server, and no one has turned on the IMAP switch yet. As a result, I can only access my email using Outlook or Entourage, two applications I truly loathe. Now, Outlook does allow me to set up a rule to redirect all my email to an external IMAP account, but for some unknown reason this process strips out all the addresses in the "To" field of each message, replacing them with the address to which the mail is being redirected. So now I never know whether a message was sent just to me, to several other people and me, or solely to someone else with me as a "BCC." More importantly, this renders the "Reply All" button in my mail client absolutely useless. Another odd quirk? Outlook redirects HTML emails as plain text, meaning any formatting in the original message is lost. The only workaround I can come up with is for someone in IT to go into Active Directory and forward my mail to an external address from there. This would eliminate my reliance on Outlook's fatally flawed redirect rule. Sadly, however, my department's IT staff hasn't been granted Active Directory access by the larger institution, so no one can actually set this up for me.

With Gmail now offering IMAP, I now know exactly where I want my work email forwarded -- assuming I can find someone to forward it.

[Download Squad] Gmail gets IMAP

An interesting post this morning from Merlin Mann on his 43 Folders blog about recent research on multitasking. This includes yesterday's New York Times article which cites several studies including one looking at Microsoft workers and the effects of interrupts on their work:

a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites.

The effects on the individual are measurable in terms of cognitive performance the NYT article also cites a startling figure for the overall cost of multitasking.

The productivity lost by overtaxed multitaskers cannot be measured precisely, but it is probably a lot. Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex, a business-research firm, estimates the cost of interruptions to the American economy at nearly $650 billion a year.

So far none of the studies have directly discussed the impact of IM's during Torts...

Last week, the New York Times published a story about the rise of instant messaging within corporate culture:

Years ago, when PC's were spreading through corporations, many companies eliminated secretaries on the theory that the machines would enable professionals to do their own typing and send their own messages by e-mail. But phishing attacks, viruses and spam have clogged e-mail networks, and voice-mail boxes are also overflowing.

Now a generation of office workers who grew up with instant messaging has gained control. They have made I.M. the new black, the latest trend in information technology. Along the way, they have changed how the corporate world converses and have built a series of new communication applications.

Granted, most of the examples included in the story involve technology companies, settings that tend to be early adopters of bleeding edge trends. But it would be foolish to dismiss the story's importance on that fact alone.

In a presentation on instant messaging at last month's Computers in Libraries conference, librarian and Walking Paper blogger Aaron Schmidt cited a poll that found that young people view email as a way to communicate with "old people." For today's high school and college students, IM and text messaging are the preferred method of communication. Email and telephones? Forget about it.

Why is this so important for law libraries? Because this generation of plugged in youth will soon become the law students and lawyers who make up our primary patron base. Perhaps more importantly, they'll eventually become law school faculty members. If we can't talk to them in the forum they prefer, they'll look elsewhere for help. They'll ask their classmates, their colleagues, friends at other law schools, or (gasp!) librarians at other institutions who ARE making an effort to adopt patron-friendly methods of communication.

Tulsa, North Carolina, and Widener are just three examples of law school libraries already making such an effort. For an example from the world of court libraries, check out the Massachusetts Trial Courts Law Libraries.

[NY Times] I.M. Generation Is Changing the Way Business Talks