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Regarding Thing 4 of the 10 Things.

I have accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and some other social networking sites, but to be honest, I’m really not immersed in any one of them. On a personal level, I like Facebook the most from the ones I’ve tried and have used it to stay somewhat in touch with various friends, classmates, colleagues, and family. I opened up a MySpace account for this exercise and I have to say that I really can’t stand looking at MySpace pages. There are a few that I’ve seen (some from libraries) that are decent, but the majority of the ones I’ve come across would give me a headache if I stayed on them too long. I like LibraryThing a lot and have used it a just a little bit so far. I recently bought a barcode scanner so I can scan my books into LibraryThing, but we’ll see how long that project lasts!

As for how this relates to public libraries, I’m all for libraries expanding their online presence by creating MySpace pages and Facebook accounts, but I do think that for some people the idea of their library trying to “befriend” them online is kinda creepy. I’m in favor of libraries being more visible to people in general, meeting people where they are, and showing them what the library can offer them. But I also think libraries should take advantage of these types of connections to start a two-way conversation with people and invite them to have a voice in what they want their library to be. I think it’ll be interesting to see how the spirit of social networking sites continues to manifest itself in public libraries in the next few years. I hope our library has more conversations about the bigger picture surrounding all of this and how the library fits in.

I’ll end this with a few questions (and links):

Is the lonely American now just a bit lonelier?

Are most of us bowling alone?

Is virtual the new reality? 

What are people doing on Facebook?