Thing 20 - Libraries and Social Networks

I joined facebook and I'm probably one of the oldest members. I found my sons and nephews and invited them to be friends. We'll see how they respond...

My friend, Barb Weldon and co-worker, Karen Wood (fellow "23 Thing" bloggers) invited me to be their friends!

These are the two groups that I joined:

Libraries and Librarians, because it's for libraries, librarians and fans of both.

23 Things on a Stick, because this group is made up of librarians who are going through a self-paced learning program of new Internet Tools, sometimes called Library 2.0, but in Minnesota it is called "23 Things on a Stick".

I can see the appeal of facebook. Everyone wants friends - one of my nephews has over 500 "friends". You can let the world know all about your accomplishments, interests, etc.

My opinion of facebook is summed up in the article, Why Facebook Is the Future, by Lev Grossman. He writes, "Facebook's appeal is both obvious and rather subtle. It's a website, but in a sense, it's another version of the Internet itself: a Net within the Net, one that's everything the larger Net is not. Facebook is cleanly designed and has a classy, upmarket feel to it--a whiff of the Ivy League still clings. People tend to use their real names on Facebook. They also declare their sex, age, whereabouts, romantic status and institutional affiliations. Identity is not a performance or a toy on Facebook; it is a fixed and orderly fact. Nobody does anything secretly: a news feed constantly updates your friends on your activities. On Facebook, everybody knows you're a dog."

Libraries are using MySpace to attract teens and younger patrons. I think it's a great idea. Not sure if it would work for our corporate library, the vp's at our company are a bit old school - but I'm sure if we created a page we'd get a lot of attention so it may be a clever marketing tool.