Diffusion of Innovation

What's most interesting (and hopefully won't be a roadblock) is that the "innovation" that I'm building my model around is a service the staff of the Learning Commons already provide. The goals are to get the word out to students that there are actually staff members willing and waiting for a good part of every day to handle their instant messaging reference interactions...and we're waiting, and waiting, and waiting for hours with not so much as one instant message from a student. Because the service is under used, staff time is also being wasted because we could be doing something more productive than waiting for the computer to ding or chime letting us know there's a student who wants to chat about a reference question. There are many communication channels the LC (Learning Commons) could be using...I'm really rather confused as to why nothing has happened as of yet to advertise this reference service. The LC can start with other librarians who have access to students in the various educational departments. Each school and specific subject area at SU has a "subject librarian" assigned who have direct access to faculty. What better way to advertise a service, but through the professor or TA? Various methods of media can also be used to get the word out. The DO may be considered an opinion leader to some, and if they endorse the chatting reference service, usage statistics may go up. Decision makers in administration would have to witness the value of the service in order to give it more visibility on the Library's main website. Right now, it's completely buried and it's no wonder no one can find it or uses it.

Innovation-Decision Process
Knowledge: The Learning Commons staff has already decided the instant messaging service is a worthwhile means of providing reference service. Most students chat and instant message every day. They need to be aware this is also a method of service the library would love to provide for them...the students just have to be aware it exists.
Persuasion Step: The apparent lack of usage of the chatting service could definitely be discouraging to staff. Statistics are and should be constantly reviewed to determine if the service will continue to be offered. It will take some heavy marketing on the Library's side to convince it's worth the students time and effort to log in and instant message the staff their reference questions.
Decision: The Learning Commons will give the service a full year of use in order to determine whether it will be adopted or rejected.
Implementation: While the service is already implemented, it's low usage sort of gives it a clean slate, as it's currently pretty unknown to most of the student and faculty population.
Confirmation: Ongoing evaluation is the main focus of this innovation. High usage statistics will definitely prove the correct decision was made to continue the reference service.

There are certainly a number of factors that need to be considered such as, even if the subject librarians did spread the word about the instant message reference service to the faculty, would the faculty consider it a worthwhile service to advise their students to use? Some faculty may be laggards who are too traditional in their thinking of what "normal" library reference service should be, they would instead advise the students get themselves in the library to the reference desk in person, rather than communicate with library staff virtually. The Library administration may indeed see the service as a useful tool, but not important enough to give it prime real estate on the library's homepage. This list can go on and on, but one last consideration is, are the staff trained and ready in the event this service does pick up in volume, is the Meebo platform even adequate? Lots of things to consider, hopefully the development of a model will flush the issues out.