Social Networking

Ah the wonders of MySpace and Facebook. I personally am a Facebook person and have a nice little Facebook page. In saying that I am a Facebook person please do not assume I am one of those people who documents my entire days activities via this site. No I am a Facebook person who created a page to link up with a friend and view a few photos and from there I have gained a few friends along the way. (As a note these are actual friends who I see and speak with on a regular basis, they are not these cyber friends that seem to have appeared all over the place and I certainly do not have 100's of them)

In relation to the library environment there is an opportunity for us to use these tools to perhaps connect with the younger demographic, which otherwise seem to slip through the cracks in library partnerships. As this is the section of the community that is so connected with these social networking sites, libraries could harness these sites to promote directly to this demographic library activities that are of interest to them.

Whilst I am an avid Internet and gadget geek (yes I can admit it), the social networking side of things is for me a little too impersonal. Whilst you could have 100 friends list in your Facebook, how many of them are actual friends?
There is also an intrusion into what are personal aspects of our lives through these pages, which have become a real issue.
I still like to write an email and send a txt directly to one person in a personal way. That person knows that I am thinking about them when I write and when I write it is styled specifically for them and not the masses.

For now Cheers!