Week 3 - Social Networking

Welcome to Week 3 of Ezra Edition

Social Networking or Microblogging (Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, etc.)

"Social Media" is the current communication-channel darling. This is where a lot of the current conversation about library topics takes place. The "old" places (conferences, blogs, email lists, webpages, journals, etc.) still are valid communication channels, but the newest stuff is coming to the fore in social media. The communication channels are fragmenting/fragmented - for good or bad.

Here is a quick overview and some of the platforms being used:

• More students are using “Social Networking” for everything
  
• Create a Twitter account for yourself, find interesting people to follow
  
  (@awd for example)
•  Social Feed Aggregators
  There are websites which allow "lifestreaming" which aggregate and broadcast the updates from many Social Networking services. The library uses Freindfeed to aggregate Shiplibrary blog and Twitter updates, flickr & Picassa uploads, LibAnswers Questions answered, LibGuides created or updated, and much more.
• Check out Friendfeed
• Check out Facebook
  If you’re not on Facebook, and don’t want to be either, you can get with someone who is on Facebook (or who doesn’t mind creating a Facebook account) and friend folks you feel like catching or keeping up with. I've heard from folks that the only reason they are on Facebook is to keep up with their kids or grand-kids)

Discovery Exercises:

• Check out the ShipLibrary Friendfeed page
• What do you think about it? Write a blog post and link it in the comments below
•  Take look at some library twitter accounts to see how libraries use (or don't anymore) twitter
• Create a Twitter account and follow a few libraries
• Take a look at "Social Feed Aggregator" websites (like Friendfeed or Facebook)
• Specifically check out the trivia found in this feed and comment on the pros and cons of following or sharing this kind of information.
• Friendfeed offers an option called "Rooms" - check out the Library Society of the World
• What do you think of the topics on the first page or two? Would this kind of resource be helpful to use here at Ship? How about at the KLN level for keeping up and discussing who is doing what and how in KLN libraries?