Thursday, October 2, 2008

Social Networking application in the library

Most of the friends on my Facebook page are librarians that I know personally or collegially. Others like Stephen Abram and Michael Stephens, I've followed for quite some time. So aside from keeping out with everyone's antics and activities, social networking can be beneficial in seeing what library innovators are up to. Some potential uses for social networking sites would be for programming ideas, collection development and instruction. For example, maybe a friend has noted in their profile that they kayak, knit, cook, etc. Perhaps they belong to a special interest networking group and there are members who would be willing to visit your library for a program. All of the librarians on my Facebook page are linked with some form of book site like Goodreads and Visual Bookshelf, providing great resources for Readers Advisory and collection development. Finally, social networking sites would be useful in training for staff or patrons. My library recently purchased a number of Playaways and we've been thinking about producing a YouTube video to profile them in real time. This application would be most appropriate in showing patrons how the item works and how to operate the controls.

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