I think there are definitely some great opportunities for library's to use social networking sites to communicate and engage with their community. It just makes sense, that if (nearly) everyone is using these types of sites to interact with one another, then we in library land should be doing the same. If we don't, then we're really missing a great opportunity.
At my library we do have aspirations to "social network" with our community. A teen oriented My Space page and a library blog are two things that we've been wanting to get up and running for a while now. Unfortunately we've been unable to get approval for either of these ventures so far from the powers that be, which has been frustrating. I think we probably had the idea of doing a My Space page way back before most people had even heard of Face Book, and I fear that by the time we eventually do get the go ahead to do it, My Space will be about as groovy as MS DOS and 5 & 1/4 inch floppy discs!
Hopefully though, we will get there, as I really do think that it's important that libraries try to use these opportunities. We all know that we're essentially competing for people's time with other businesses / organisations / pass times, which are already out there using this technology effectively. If we don't, then we seriously run the risk of getting left behind. I remember in the early days of the Internet, public libraries were at the forefront in many ways - we developed/hosted our council's first web pages, we used it in our daily work as a research tool to expand our reference collections and certainly at the library where I was working, we provided many people with their first and only access to the Internet before it became more affordable at home.
The examples linked from the NSW Public Libraries Learning page are great, and it's really inspiring that there are so many libraries out there doing this kind of thing already, and I really hope that the rest of us are able to join them soon.
I've already linked to TwittEarth in a previous blog, and while it is undoubtedly a bit of a time waster, it is interesting to leave it on your browser for a while just to see how much social networking is going on out there... plus the little "twitts" that pop up do look cute!
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2 comments:
For some changes to happen you often have to become very good at policy writing. It is always a useful skill. Sometime you need to show people the kind of thinkg you intend doing as they may have heard about it but not really know what they are being asked to approve.
Ellen (PLS)
上班好累哦，看看部落格轉換心情~~~先謝謝啦!! .................................................................
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