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!
I created a generic myspace page for a public library as my final project in Doc Martens' LIS web class in Fall 2006. I also work as a reference librarian at a public library. My fellow librarian and comrade liked it, and thought he would show it to our library director, who also liked it, and asked me to tailor it to our library, Stillwater Public. I no longer have the beta-version available, but here is what the "finished" product looks like. Luckily for our library, we do not receive e-rate funding, so we do not have to block social networking and blogging websites, like other schools and libraries do. Patrons come to our library to access the internet and www.myspace.com, more specifically, because it's banned in so many places. I put up signs last week advertising that our library is now on myspace, and got a few extra friends requests. Hopefully, as word spreads, more people will be interested in joining our friends' list and getting all sorts of up
Comments
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!