Illinois Chat

CITES provides a centralized Secure Chat service, Illinois Chat, to the entire campus community. This Secure Chat is accessible via any Jabber/XMPP client -- common ones include Pidgin (Windows/Unix), Spark (Windows/Unix/Mac OS X), Adium (Mac OS X), and iChat (Mac OS X). The service is secure (SSL), and conversations are not logged in any form. No registration is necessary: Any campus user can log in with his/her NetID and Active Directory password. Any U of I member can be added to the buddy list by his/her netid.

Some library units use Instant Messaging clients (Google Talk, Yahoo!, AOL, etc.) for inter-library, work-related communication. The Library IT recommends the CITES service, Illinois Chat, over any external chat for security reasons:

Individuals will want to coordinate this with their unit heads if this is a desired addition. If units wish to move this direction (recommended), they can log a work request through OTRS (with the corresponding inventory numbers and hostnames ) to the IT Help Desk to request installing an IM/Chat client - Spark is Library IT's choice of the Jabber/XMPP client. Upon receiving the request, the  Library IT Workstation and Network Support will install Spark on the desired machines remotely.