When will the madness end? Now the myspace buzz is out, facebook is in. I even saw a mashup [can't find it again!] that proclaimed facebook the genius brainchild of social networking systems, and myspace the red-headed step-child who scrubs the floors. Okay, maybe it wasn't really that bad, but it was pretty brutal. And I'm supposed to give a conference presentation about how helpful myspace can be for libraries? I'm going to have to dig pretty hard for that one. Yikes!
Bertot, Jaeger, Langa and McClure wrote this article about public access and internet in libraries, and how the federal government has "drafted" libraries to help the people without any compensation; monetary or otherwise. So essentially, libraries are getting dumped on by Big Brother and Uncle Sam, and especially so in times of crisis and natural disaster. Why? The geniuses at FEMA and DHS and all those other government agencies helping poor people have slowly been making their forms and information solely available online. Because people who can't afford to feed themselves probably have access to a computer. It just makes sense, right? WRONG. So, instead of creating offices to help these people use the computers to find the information, they direct the people to the nation's libraries. They are giving people references to the library but not giving libraries extra money, funding, or anything of the sort to help them out. They have shifted the burden of aiding the
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MySpace- spam, rear ends in my face, owned by a corporation that has very little integrity for expressing the truth.
I know we librarians are supposed to be neutral, but all those factors are why I enjoy Facebook and could care less about MySpace.
Reagrding user outreach, a comment was made by Marshall Breeding of Vanderbilt University that most students use these sites for the social aspect. Perhaps we should focus more on instant messaging reference service and creating programs that get the kids in the library?!
Our patrons really use MySpace more than any other social networking site, including older folks, and the ability to imbed music and videos is just really alluring, I have to admit.
We've been doing A LOT of programming to get kids and adults into the library. I can't even keep up with all the stuff, but what I have posted is on a wiki that Meredith Farkas created that can be found here.
Facebook has been blocking entities, such as libraries, from creating profiles, because they want us to be a "group," which seems less effective, but ??? who knows
Nice to see you're still blogging, too!
I presented at COIL conference in July, held at NSU-BA. Doc Martens was there, she talked about our class; that was really neat. It was a great networking and professional experience.
Sorry my response is so late, I haven't had much time for blogging lately!