Week 5: Thing 10 - Explore Social Networks

I have been using social networking sites for a few years now. I'm familiar with Myspace and Facebook, but Ning was a new one for me. I like both Facebook and Myspace, but I prefer Facebook more. Myspace is great because you can personalize the appearance more, and add music, etc. to it. However, that's also what drove me away from Myspace. Some people loaded so much onto their pages that it took far too long to load, which drove me crazy. So after a while I concentrated on my Facebook profile and deleted my Myspace page. I still use Myspace for music, because it is a great site for that, but I don't use it to network anymore.

I use Facebook to help keep in contact with my friends from college, home, and new people that I've met while on trips. It's great! I can put up photos, videos, post articles, leave messages for people, and it even has fun apps to put in my profile.

I think that libraries using social networking sites is a great idea! There are a variety of people on social networking sites now, and this would be a good way for libraries to keep in touch with patrons, or even find new patrons. If libraries created pages on facebook and myspace, people from their communities could friend them, then if there was an announcement it could be sent out over the network. This might reach more people than just putting up posters. While people don't always look at posters or ads, many (myself included) check their email frequently (or, if they're like me, a better word might be obsessively), so notices sent out online might get more attention and create more attendance to an event.

I've seen businesses use social networking sites for advertising upcoming events, and it catches my attention more than if they had put a notice in a newspaper. If this works for businesses, it should work just as well for a library.