Feb 26 2009
Post# 6 : Social Networking
I’ve been involved with social networking for several years. I remember signing up for Friendster and then switching to Myspace when Friendster threatened to charge for applications. I’ve since stopped using Myspace and moved to Facebook. Facebook has helped me to keep in touch with all of my friends from college and around the world. Everyone seems to have a Facebook these days, recently I was added by my mother. My mom and I now use Facebook to communicate and play games. Facebook is a powerful tool for librarians to be aware of because of the sheer amount of individuals using the network.
Facebook has a developer’s kit which allows you to create an application in Facebook for your organization. Many Academic libraries have an application which allows you to search their catalog online. Feel free to add me on Facebook!
For my work I try to stay involved with a Ning group called FohBoh. In the restaurant industry this stands for Front of House Back of House. For this ning group I’ve basically added myself to serve the same role as reference librarian: answering questions and writing blog posts.
http://www.fohboh.com/bkochendorfer
I’ve found Twitter to bring a very positive response especially in the library world. Several librarians use twitter to communicate and talk during conferences. Twitter is extremely powerful as posting is open. This allows for a heavy amount of lurking and gaining information.
http://www.twitter.com/bkochendofer
I also use LibraryThing. I often found the most enjoyable part of LibraryThing is just the blog put out by librarything. I think that LibraryThing has a great potential to help librarians catalog information within their library without using expensive database management software. The blog on librarything is often up to date with current library trends and topics, often drawing out interesting conversations. Librarything was one of the most informative library websites when OCLC changed their cataloging rules. I often enjoy reading about Flash Cataloging parties where librarians go and help catalog a collection quickly. This seems like a really great way that librarything gives back to the library community by simply providing open access to its cataloging information.
