Taking the plunge

Well, I finally did it. I bit the proverbial bullet and joined a social networking site: Facebook. My little sister is on it (she's in college) - and, as it turns out so are several of my friends, though some of my closest friends have MySpace accounts - and she's going to be studying abroad this semester on the other side of the world, so I thought this might be a good way to keep in touch.

Since Facebook placed 1st in the 2007 Web 2.0 Awards, I thought blogging about my joining would be a good way to complete Thing #19 :-)

I'm still a little overwhelmed, to be honest. On the whole, I prize my privacy and much of what goes on here (as with a blog, I suppose) is about sharing information about yourself, so it's a challenge trying to find a balance of participation without total "exposure." I like the fact that you can set your profile so that only your "friends" can view your information, and that you can write messages to individuals without having to tell everyone by writing on the "wall."

In thinking about Facebook and the library setting, I decided to take a look at some recent scholarly publishing on the topic (see my brief reading list below). Initially, I found Mack (et al)'s recommendation to create personal profiles as opposed to institutional profiles surprising, but they explained that this is a Facebook regulation. (Landis also suggests creating a Facebook group for students to join.) It poses an interesting question about continuity, however. Students and library staff come and go, but the library (hopefully!) is more persistent. How can the library establish its sense of continuity? Should it even concern itself with that?

Ah! I "spoke" too soon, Rapple points out that Facebook no longer requires profiles to belong only to individuals. (And, now I see there are many libraries out there!)

Anyway, sounds like this tool has potential for reaching undergraduates especially. Perhaps the undergrads who get hip to the help librarians can provide will become graduates who come visit us at the desk!


Landis, C. Connecting to Users with Facebook. Georgia Library Quarterly v. 43 no. 4 (Winter 2007) p. 6

Mack, D., et al. Reaching Students with Facebook: Data and Best Practices.
Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship v. 8 no. 2 (Summer 2007)
p. 4

Rapple, C. Social networking. Serials v. 20 no. 3 (November 2007) p.240-241