Are you on Facebook?

Last summer I spent a week doing renovations on inner city homes with two of my sons and 100 other teen-agers (and some adults). As the week was coming to an end everyone was talking about becoming friends with each other on Facebook. So, I ventured in and made myself a Facebook page. And, lo and behold, there were all our newfound friends just waiting to be my friends.

As I was signing up I entered what college I attended and a screen popped up saying "People on Facebook You May Know". Sure enough, there was one of my best friends from college who I had lost touch with. She became my first friend. She responded, thrilled that someone else as old as her was also on Facebook. It has been quite nice being in contact with her again.

In the year since venturing onto Facebook, I have kept up with the kids I got to know last summer at WorkCamp. I used Facebook to invite these kids to a going-away party for my son. I have regained contact with several college friends. I have made friends with other parents who have sent their sons off to Marine Boot Camp (as I did last August). I have even been able to chat with my son who is far away being a Marine. The fact that I can keep an eye on what my kids are doing on Facebook is just a bonus.

I have set limits on what I will do on Facebook. I let the kids be kids. I rarely look at their pages. I have not become friends with my nieces and nephews, because I don't want to become the "Facebook Police". If I can't look at their pages then I don't have to worry about what they are saying or doing on there.

As for what Facebook can be used for at the Library. It is a great way to communicte with young people. Group pages could be set up for Teen Book Clubs or the SRC for kids. Notes can be sent out with reminders for meetings and other activities. Questions can be asked like "Which book would you like to read for next month's book discussion; The Book Thief or Twilight?" Again, this needs someone to start it and keep it up. It takes time initially, but may pay off in dividends that would make it worthwhile.

All in all, I would say that this has been one of the most enjoyable assignments from this Web 2.0 assignment so far.

Everybody is "tweet"ing

Twitter is everywhere. You can twitter about the news, about the weather, to your favorite talk show host. I bet you can even twitter to Oprah. We can twitter to each other, and often do. I enjoy logging onto Twitter.com and see what everyone is talking about. You usually find yourself in the middle of some conversation, which you may or may not be able to go backwards to pick up the thread. If you can't, then you can use your imagination. That can be a lot of fun.

We could use Twitter for J and YA programming. If a branch had an account and kids signed on as followers, you could float ideas out there and get feedback. This could be done before any time had been spent on planning a program. If you got negative feedback, then you could move on to another idea or tweak it to make it more interesting to your patrons. But, as usual, this takes time and someone has to be committed to keeping this up. But it could be interesting to hear what our young patrons had to say.

Hmmmm... You Tube

I have been unwilling to jump on the You Tube bandwagon. As a Mom I don't trust it. I blocked it from our home computers a long time ago. I was seeing content that I did not want my children to see, so I censored it. I'm a Mom. I'm allowed to do that.

As a user, I have explored it. But, mostly, I don't find anything useful on it. I have gotten the occasional link and watched Harry Potter videos and such as that. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Simon Cowell's eyes pop out when Susan Boyle started singing. But these seem to me to be a few rare gems amongst a whole lot of junk.

These videos are entertaining, but they are not increasing my quality of life. How many videos of dancing (or worse) teen-agers do we really need on the internet? How much space is this taking up somewhere out there? How much does it cost? When is enough enough? All deep thoughts for a video website, I realize. But I wonder, "Just because we can, does it mean we should?"