Membership has its privileges…

Social Networking Sites

People, Places and Things

People (Facebook, MySpace)

Reflection on Learning about Facebook,  and MySpace

It’s all about the people in social networking !

Brian S. Mathews explains the 6th degree of separation in these terms, “Social networking isn’t new.  The old saying, “it’s not what you know, but who you know” still rings true today.  While online versions of social networks have magnified this concept, the foundation remains the same.  Essentially, social networks represent the collective body of the people we know.” (Courtenay, 2007, p.75) Networking, socializing, and pressing palms at social gatherings are essentially the same thing, except the social network on the Web scene is far more vast and infinite…in terms of possibilities. ? “There were a series of TV commercials in the 1970s that featured a young woman who cheerfully chirped that she “told two friends about Faberge Organic Shampoo, who told two friends, who told two friends, and so on, and so on…” while her image multiplied relentlessly on the screen.”http://www.marykassian.com/archives/64

 

Social networking sites started entering into the Web world as early as the 80s.  From wikipedia,

The notion that individual computers linked electronically could form the basis of computer mediated social interaction and networking was suggested early on ^[8]. There were many early efforts to support social networks via computer-mediated communication, including Usenet, ARPANET, LISTSERV, bulletin board services (BBS) and EIES: Murray Turoff’s server-based Electronic Information Exchange Service (Turoff and Hiltz, 1978, 1993). The Information Routing Group developed a schema about how the proto-Internet might support this.^[9]

Early social networking websites started in the form of generalized online communities such as The WELL (1985), Theglobe.com (1994)^[10], Geocities (1994) and Tripod (1995). These early communities focused on bringing people together to interact with each other through chat rooms, and share personal information and ideas around any topics via personal homepage publishing tools which was a precursor to the blogging phenomenon.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_service#History.

Facebook

Social networking sites allow us to build community, expand our knowledge of the world, and make new friends!  I joined facebook back in 2004, as I starting to build my community of foreign teachers that I knew, and I was finding emails not enough to meet my needs to connect with them.  On facebook, we could post photos, share fan base ideas, exchange websites for upcoming schools that were hiring or hiring fairs that may be taking place.  “Facebook is now the most visited social network, with nearly 1.2 billion visits in January 2009.”http://social-media-optimization.com/2009/02/top-twenty-five-social-networking-sites-feb-2009.  As a Library Manager, on any given day we have at least 30 facebookers that regularly check their facebook page for updates, checkins or some sort of connection, who would have thought a simple school project would turn into the social phenomen it has become today.  From Grown Up Digital, …”Zuckerberg returned to his school project, Facebook, which has since become one of the most ubiquitous social networking sites in the world; on it, friends and acquaintances keep up with each other’s news.” (Tapscott, 2009, p.39). The Web 2.0 social networking tool of Facebook was a familiar territory for  me…myspace on the other hand is a bit more foreign to me.

MySpace

MySpace is a social networking website. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California, USA,^[2] where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, Fox Interactive Media, which is owned by News Corporation. MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace

Will Richardson explains that Myspace, “as a personal journal site” for teenagers (Richardson,2009, p. 13), but he also equates sites such as Webkinz and Club Penguin for the younger set of social networkers.  I have personal experience with the former as all three of my daughters have participated in the Webkinz world phenonmena! http://www.webkinz.com/us_en/I had heard a lot of cautions about myspace and the myspace generation being overindulgent and self-absorbed.  But like many social networking sites, I think the power is in its beholder!   Myspace was originally for musicians and bands to connect with their fan base and record producers in a relatively inexpensive way.  This web 2.0 tool helped many a young band gain exposure and air time when they were in the beginning stages of fame.  “MySpace bands”, as the site’s publicist refers to them, keep production and promotion costs as low as possible”(Farkas, 2007, p.114).  Eventhough, I pride myself in my music collection, and frequently research new bands, and the new music scene, I really did not have occasion to use MySpace.

Places

As in the places you’ll go…

THe 3 heavy hitters in my social networking book sharing sites for me are:

Library Thing:    www.librarything.com

Shelfari: www.shelfari.com/

Bibliocommons: www.bibliocommons.com/

Librarything was originally recommended to me by a parent of my student in the library program.  I was speaking to her about an author I really enjoyed and wished she had written more (The God of Small Things (1997) is a politically charged novel by Indian author Arundhati Roy. It is a story about the childhood experiences of a pair of fraternal twins who become victims of circumstance. The book is a description of how the small things in life build up, translate into people’s behavior and affect their lives. The book won the Booker Prize in 1997.)  She suggested I try Librarything.com/suggest, and I have been hooked ever since!  I will quite often recommend this site for our patrons who are hooked on a certain author but they haven’t written anything in awhile or certain genres that patrons like – it can really help me when I recommend a read.  I like that the most common tag in Library thing is “READ” (Farkas, 2007, p. 134) whereas, it’s “cool” and “free” in del.ci.ous and “me” and “people” in Flickr.  I love that my social networking online can bring me to titles that I wouldn’t normally be exposed to or find on my own and let’s face it I love to read!

Shelfari is a newer edition to my reportoire of book recommendations, and social networking book sharing sites.  I like that Shelfari is easy to use, and navigate, and you can actually meet like minded avid readers like myself.  The last book for book club was based on a Shelfari choice (The Red Tent by Anita Daimant) and we have decided to order her latest book for the library because of this recommendation by Shelfari.  From wikipedia: Shelfari is a social cataloging website. Shelfari users build virtual bookshelves of the titles they own or have read, and can rate, review, tag, and discuss their books. Shelfari was launched on October 11, 2006^[1]. In February 2007, Amazon.com invested $1 million in Shelfari,^[2] and moved to acquire it a year later in August of 2008.^[3].

Bibliocommons a new love of my life in my reading experiences.  I first heard about Bibliocommons on my tweetdeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/) from a tweet update from Edmonton Public Library. www.epl.ca.  I absolutely can not save enough wonderful things about this catalogue, I love the recommendations, I love the surfing you can do and love how easy it is to place a hold on a title.  It’s easy, looks like Amazon, but better because it’s free (or at least very frugal – only $12/year gets you a membership at the library).  That’s a dollar a month – AMAZING!http://epl.bibliocommons.com/dashboard.

BilbioCommons, a new social discovery system for libraries that replaces all user-facing OPAC functionality, allowing for faceted searching and easier user commenting and tagging, has gone live in Oakville, ON, a city of 160,000 outside Toronto. It is expected to be used by public libraries serving more than half of Canada’s population—and some libraries in the United States, too. “This is revolutionary, as far as I’m concerned,” Gail Richardson, Oakville PL’s acting director of online services, told LJ. “People don’t want a library that acts like just a glorified card catalog online. They want a catalog that’s as good as Google and Amazon.” web sited: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6579748.html.

And now introducing StumbleUpon, the latest installment of reading recommendations.  I recently added this one as a recommendation from none other than Will Richardson from his latest blog entitled “http://weblogg-ed.com/2009/deechoing-my-reading-practice/)  I liked the idea of expanding what I am reading, diversifying what I am reading and possibly exploring some different titles from the usual ones I get from friends or family. http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#1ltPoj/v1kram.posterous.com/liu-bolinthe-invisible-man/topic:Arts

Things

(AKA:) NING, PING, AND LINKEDIN)

I joined the Canadian 21st Teacher-Librarians Ning at the beginning of the semester, and it has been great to keep me informed and up to date about conferences or other events that I might want to attend.  http://canucktls.ning.com/.  “Ning is the social platform for the world’s interests and passions online. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Ning offers an easy-to-use service that allows people to join and create Ning Networks. With more than 1.7 million Ning Networks created and 37 million registered users, millions of people every day are coming together across Ning to explore and express their interests, discover new passions, and meet new people around shared pursuits. Ning was founded in October 2004 by Gina Bianchini and Marc Andreessen. The company is privately held. For more information, visit www.ning.com.“Ping.fm has been a recent addition I like that I can update my status for all my social networking sites by simply typing in my message and it broadcasts it across my media.  I learned about this niffy tool from Mastermaq’s elluminate session on social networking sites. http://bit.ly/6yrKm with password twitter. He mentioned that he puts a message “sleeping” because he does a lot of business with people on different timezones, of course, I can’t even fathom the day I would need to do this but I have been putting messages on my ping to announce certain milestones in my learning!  Like “finally figured out how to download an image unto WordPress blog”.

The last but not least social networking site I use quite often is LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory)(pronounced /ˈlɪŋkt.ˈɪn/) is a business-oriented social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003,^[1] it is mainly used for professional networking. As of October 2009, LinkedIn had more than 50 million registered users,^[2] spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.(wikipedia cited). I have a funny ancedote for this addition, I received an email from a work colleague to join this social network, and on his page was my Mom!  I thought, way to go Mom ahead of the game in the networking field – of course, my Mom always knew how to wheel and deal with the best of them.  That’s when you know you better get on board!

Personal Learning

Mostly I use Facebook on a regular basis, navigating myself around easily and posting “events” with some relative ease.  I find it helpful when I am at work and I need to chat with another librarian about something quickly, I can usually find another person online to chat with.  I also find it helpful to keep me organized, and gosh knows I need that on a daily basis.  But mostly, I like the social aspect of Facebook, although I also think some people can really use it as a total time suck.  But that’s pretty much like anything really?  In terms of a parent, we have resisted letting our eldest daughter get a facebook page, partly because I think that she can access her social network via cell, email and others.  She spends a lot of time at her Mother’s house and if she feels like she’s ready for that – then of course we will do what we need to do to support, educate and ensure her awareness of the responsibilities involved.

The book sharing social sites, I use on a daily basis for personal reasons, and also work related needs.  I will research books for book club, find books for programming needs, and of course, get books for this course, too!  I really like sharing ideas about books and Librarything and Bibliocommons have this going for them!  “Sites such as LibraryThing let users catalog the books they have read; they can then see which users have read similar books and look at others’ catalogues to find new titles they might be interested in reading”(Farkas, 2007, p. 141).

Professional Learning

Social networking sites play a huge part in keeping patrons informed, involved, and invested!  There is a moment afoot making libraries “hyperlocal” in social networking circles.  From Library Journal, (July 2009, Volume 134, No. 12, page 33) “The hype around hyperlocal…Hyperlocal informationis in-depth, intensely local information about the places where you live your everyday life: not necessarily cities or towns but the amorphous places with which you often associate more closely, like your neighborhood or your street or block”.  This is very excited for me, I think that the local public library brings a big role in people connecting with each other or building community with their neighbours.  I don’t think that these big social networking sites can always accomplish this.  Some examples of this are: (Everyblock, myhamilton.ca)  Social networking sites provide a face to the public library, they provide the personal connection that many people are looking for, when I first moved to TaiChung I went to the local public library to sit and take it all in and try to familarize myself with the strange surroundings that I was experiencing.

I like the way that Richardson describes social networking for our patrons, “scaffolding”, patrons can learn about events, catalogues suggestions, and other special programs.  The social aspect of networking allows for collaboration, comments, and inter change with other patrons.  I like the way that Edmonton Public has their tweets (more to say about that next assignment) but they have different personalities and different perspectives tweeting for them.  Will Richardson, “Web portfolio” (2008, p. 13) much like a library’s web page, it presents a image, an entity known as Beaumont Library, and therefore humanizes it.  It allows for connection on many different levels, not just an initial calling card.

And lastly, social networking allows for libraries to be where its’ at!  They can connect with their patrons where they are…”Just as social bookmarking is useful for patrons, it is equally useful as a way for librarians to keep up with what’s happening in our field.  Social bookmarking lets librarians easily organize and file articles and web sites for future reference, and browse others’ bookmarks to discover resources they may never have found using a search engine”(Farkas, 2007, p. 145)  We are shedding the “nerdy”, sweater sets, cricket nylons and all stereotypes, we are happenin, man!  Buffy Hamilton, has the latest mashable music sites on her blog this week!  http://theunquietlibrary.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/top-10-facebook-apps-for-music-lovers-from-mashable/

“While social networking sites have received negative attention over the past few years, libraries can use them in positive ways to provide better service to their patrons.” (Farkas, 2007. p. 119)

Works cited:

Davies, J & Merchant, G. Web 2.0 for Schools. Learning and Social Participation.  2009.

Farkas, Meredith. Social Software in Libraries.  Building Collaborations, Communication, and Community Online.  2007.

Richardson, R.  Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. 2009.

Serial Cited:

Library Journal. July 2009.  Volume 134 No. 12