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?"

Library Thing or Goodreads?

When it comes to a book cataloging site, I seem to be a follower. I created an account in Library Thing and was starting to get it up and going, when everyone around me seemed to be defecting to Goodreads. So I did what any red-blooded American will do... I followed along. I abandoned my Library Thing account and left it out there in cyberspace all by itself, probably feeling all lost and lonely. Then I created a new Goodreads account.

This Goodreads account has been fairly successful. I have added many of the books that I have read. I enjoy giving the book stars to indicate how much I liked the book. I have also written some reviews. Occasionally I read a book and have a particularly strong feeling about some aspect of the story. I enjoy describing these feelings in the review space. The really fun part is when someone responds to these reviews. For Great Books '09, I read a book that I did not care for at all. But all the reviews I read were the opposite of what I felt. So I wrote my less than glowing review and seemed to touch a nerve. Apparently, I missed the point of this particular book and some of my fellow readers felt compelled to point out just where my thinking went wrong. I loved that exchange. It was great fun, and well worth the price of admission.

One feature of Goodreads that I find helpful is the emails updating me with what my "friends" are reading. I did not have to read these emails too many times before I got a real taste of what my co-readers enjoy reading. This is always helplful when I am asked about a genre that may not be my specialty. I can be fairly certain of who nearby may be able to help. And, afterall, isn't that what we want out of all of this?

If you are interested, you can view my book lists here.

RSS Feeds

I have set up my home computer to use iGoogle as my home page. To this I have added Google Reader where I can catch up on the day's headlines. What I liked about this, in particular, is that I could choose where I would get these headlines. When you log onto a MSN homepage, or some such, you at their mercy for headlines. With Google Reader, I could choose which news service to use.

I also added the AACPL Exploration blog and several of my colleague's blogs. I liked being able to see their updates without having to go hunt for them.

I am looking forward to RSS feeds being available through the Aquabrowser. I am hoping this will be an easy way to know when my favorite authors are coming out with new books.

I intend to continue to explore this particular aspect of Web 2.0. So far, I find this to be the most useful.

Just testing...

how to insert links into a post. Learn something new everyday.

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