Thing 20. Libraries and Social Networks

I have heard so many things about MySpace and Facebook. This is the first time I have actually looked at either of them. I looked at MySpace, of course, because you don't have to have an account to do so. I looked at both of the library sites. As I expected, they are used to bring in young adults. My own public library has a MySpace account with lots of friends. I wouldn't create a library MySpace account, since we are a system library. It would have to come from the top. I thought about creating a personal MySpace account just to keep up with my family. My family all lives in the same little town. When we get together my teenage nieces and my sister are always talking about did you get the email about whatever. I never get the emails, and when I ask about it they say, "Do you have a MySpace account?" However, I have heard about some of the stuff my brother does on there and have decided that I would rather not have my own account.

I attended IACRL last week. Facebook was being promoted for libraries in one of the sessions. It was suggested that academic libraries should have accounts. We were able to look at two different accounts. I suppose if you were to have tons of links in there for the library it would be like one stop shopping. It does seem that there is a lot of maintenance involved and you would have to have someone willing to manage that. Since I don't have enough hours in the day for what I need to get done, this would not work for me.