The Magic of Social Networks

This was the keynote presentation, from Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, at this year's Wisconsin Library Association conference.

The Magic of Social Networks

View more presentations from Pew Internet & American Life Project, Pew Research Center.

Library 2.0 makes good neighbors

I see that the Lester Public Library over in nearby Two Rivers, WI has gotten some well deserved attention as part of a presentation by David Lee King. Several of the slides hold up the 2.0 resources developed by Lester staff. Kudos to Director Jeff Dawson & the good folk of T'rivers!

Value of social software

Value is where you find or make it. While a recent study revealed the "shocking news" that the social site Facebook is mostly a time waster, libraries can still make worthwhile use of it. Writing in her Free Range Librarian blog, Karen Schneider notes:

I realize Facebook has its silly side. ... I also don’t spend a lot of time in Facebook. I ignore actions on Facebook such as sending me “beer,” karma, stuffed beers, or the same dumb video. Once in a while I’ll play a game, but I won’t forward it to my 300+ “friends.” I check in, I tweak my profile, check messages, send a couple out, but I’m not Facebook-obsessed.

Pretty much exactly how I use it, though the game part is off work hours and I feel guilty about ignoring the pinatas and pokes people send me -- I'm not ignoring my friends, just the fun part of Facebook. I'm not very much fun at work, as coworkers will attest. The message part, OTOH, has some real utility for professional purposes, and having a library page allows one more easily updated vector of information about the organization. Facebook has recently announced "Facebook Connect", which raises the ante for serious work.

Closer to home, our InfoSoup catalog has quietly unveiled "community reviews", with an option to write a review on the pages of bib records. It'll be interesting to see if it takes off -- would love to hear more input and feedback from people in the community. What do you think?

Social Networks, part 4 "Is MySpace Good for Society?"

Steven Cohen on Library Stuff links to an interesting post on the Freakonomics Blog at the New York Times. Author Steven Dubner brings together a panel of experts to discuss the impact of social networks. He asks:

Has social networking technology (blog-friendly phones, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) made us better or worse off as a society, either from an economic, psychological, or sociological perspective?

And there's a mixed bag of responses worth reading, but they all accept the powerful force that social networks have become. Sometimes it's hard to look at change as good or bad. It just is what it is, and you work with it.

But I still don't get Twitter.

Social Networks, part 3 (Project Play assignment)

This week's assignment from Project Play:

1. Visit any 3 (suggested) library MySpace pages.
2. Note the ways libraries are “surfacing” library services.
3. Reflect on the place of libraries in social networking.
4. Post your thoughts about why or why not you would want to create a MySpace page for your library.

If your library already has a MySpace or Facebook page, also consider using your blog to share any tips & advice you might have...

OK, I looked at MySpace pages for Denver (teen page with rap music to annoy old people away), Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (garishly colored with no musc teen page), Arapahoe (funky teen page, with Paramores' "Crushcrushcrush", kinda nice emo -- this old guy liked it, so they're doing something wrong). By golly, all the ones I looked at are teen pages; or almost all: Oshkosh appears age-neutral. Facebook is more staid.

But beyond appearances, all three are "surfacing" library services. Delivering and linking to them, even. Typical offerings include library event info, teen blogs, reader's advisory, popular media info and homework resources. Mostly, this appears to be good marketing -- you build your network by establishing a point. of presence where your users are. You link from your website to your MySpace page and vice versa.

As to whether my library had a MySpace page, I'm pretty neutral. If your YA staff and Teen Board wanted to do it, fine. If they don't want to, fine. It doesn't appeal to me that much. And anything you create has to be maintained, or the value can degrade quickly.

I do have a Facebook page and created one for our library, just to try it out. I mainly created my page to stay in touch with the next younger generation of family. But I quickly found I had a lot of real friends on Facebook and a number of professional colleagues. It's a fun way to stay in touch. That being said, I have not yet found it real productive: there seems to be a lot of people asking you to play games and take quizzes. It seems like a lot of applications are marketing themselves virally on Facebook.

But there are opportunities for book & movie reviews and discussions. There are network and organization pages worth checking out. I think the potential is there. I'm networking not only with a long-lost cousin, but with my library school alumni group.

But the waste potential is there too, and the pretension. Katie Scullion notes:

... the amount of effort that goes into updating and these profiles will most likely go unnoticed after a few months ... fads move from site to site as one becomes more annoying/ad-dense than the other. ... social networking maniacs will spend much of their time compulsively checking other people's profiles, prowling through picture galleries, and updating their own. It seems more of a vanity than a communication tool ...

She makes some good points, and links to a hilarious video from Colbert, providing a good perspective.

On the other hand, the "fun extra" assignment this week encourages us to try the Simpsomaker, but I prefer Simpsonize me.

Social Networks, part 2

Coincidentally or not, Tasha Saecker in Sites & Soundbytes recently posted a link to a great article from the Readership Institute, "Build a network, not a destination."

Although the article is focussed on newspaper websites, it speaks strongly to my sense of issues we're addressing in developing our library site and electronic services. More to the point, it speaks to why we should be paying attention to social networks.

Points raised include:

• Link out -- a lot
• Link, especially, to blogs
• Link IN -- to related content of your own
• Open up the archives
• Use Web technologies intelligently
• Cultivate conversations about your content
• Distribute your content widely
• Partner with the portals
• Build your own social networks
• Encourage use of ranking/rating sites
• Build shortcuts across the Web

Tasha annotates this with some notes for library application. The reader's digest version of her summary:

• Link, link, link
• Cultivate conversations
• Build shortcuts to information
  

Both the orginal article and Tasha's take on it speak strongly to the importance of networks, social networks and how we implement library websites.

We've seen for years the concern that everybody wants to be THE portal. We can't be all things to all people, so the question becomes: how do we translate our service offerings into a valuable node in our users' network?

Social Networks, part 1 (Project Play)

Social Networking in Plain English - a video from the good folks at Common Craft -- who produce a lot of interesting instructional materials -- courtesy of Project Play. My first reaction was "no, no, we're running a library, not looking for jobs, friends, or partners." But this is limiting thinking. Libraries need friends and partners, and we not only hire people, but we help people look for jobs.

So maybe there is something to the social network thing and library service. More to follow!