Thursday, July 10, 2008

Thing 20 - Libraries and Social Networks

Phew! I was on the Santa Clara City Library My Space page and boy is it loud and busy and sick making. Tulare's is nice and sedate. Arapahoe's is OK. Just looked at Hennepin's and now I am noticing that many of the friend's comments are the same across all of the library MySpace accounts. The same authors with the same posts, the same libraries saying "hey, thanks for the add!" I do like the search the catalog widget on the Hennepin space.

So, I signed up for a Facebook account and I joined "Don't mess with me, I worked in a public library." It is good to see that people are the same all over... I, of course, joined the 23 things on a stick group. I let Facebook check my personal e-mail account and locate people for me and in quick succession I was "friended" by 8 people. Phew. Then one of them started sending me flair and a countdown clock to the MN State Fair. More things on a stick!

I thought it was easy to find people I know. However, I am not certain how helpful this truly is for libraries. On MySpace there were few recent posts on the blogs and the only people commenting were lesser known (if that) authors and other MySpace libraries excited about joining the network. Are we just out there talking to ourselves and not reaching who we intend to reach?

So, there seems to be a difference between personal Facebook profiles and professional or institutional ones. Fans are for the institutions and friends are for the personal. I can't get to the information explaining the difference, so maybe I am wrong, but hey, whatever. I am bogging my computer down by having too many things open.

2 comments:

Laura said...

Of my Facebook account I now have Muppets and Flair and flowers and I am playing a Scrabulous game somewhere, but I am not sure where... I have found 5 cousins and 1 aunt. One of my cousins added me because his sister did. Or, perhaps 2 of them did, I don't recall. I even found out about a family reunion that is shortly coming up that NO ONE told me about. Miffed.

So, I can see how social networks are popular.

Linda said...

Re: family reunion--Maybe some people are more social on the web than in person? I had a headache after checking out the Santa Clara City Library page so I have to agree with your astute assessment of their site. I wonder if that's what their community is like?