not too many folks, apparently, as I have zero online "friends" as defined by MySpace and Facebook. oh well.I remember hearing Stephen Abram (Mr. Innovation from SirsiDynix) speak at WiLSWorld a couple of years ago and he was touting his daughter's 3000 (or some huge number) of MySpace friends and I was skeptical at the time. How meaningful could those friendships possibly be? I am still skeptical. But more understanding. Now that I have a dogster page, I understand more about how you can have friends (or pup pals as it may be) that you have never met and that you don't keep in contact with more than that initial "hey, let's be friends" business. One acceptance email and you are friends for life.
So where does this leave libraries and the quest to satisfy the knowledge needs of the public? I am on the fence. My niece uses MySpace for email and chat. Constantly. But she doesn't really do anything else with her page. My cousin who is a freshman at UW is all about Facebook. She met all sorts of other incoming frosh before she even graduated from high school! For these two girls, social neworking sites are for just that, socializing. They are not doing research or homework via these sites.
I think a traditional web page that is attractive and easy to use is more important in spreading the word that libraries have a lot to offer. I have tried searching on MySpace and never have much luck. After browsing the sites for this week's assignment, I'm still not that enamored. The AskAway site is great; it is clear and easy to use. Denver's site is kinda ugly and Oshkosh's was very hard for me to view. The green and gold gave me a headache! La Crosse and Charlotte have pages that look pretty cool. But I would still go to their library homepages first if I wanted info.
That said, here's a link to my seriously lacking MySpace page that has thus far only been used to email with the aforementioned 17-yr-old niece who lives in Tennessee. She won't add me as a friend, though! (My page is really pathetic looking, but I found out that hers is all tricked out because she bribed a techie kid that she works with at the mall! It really is all about who you know.)
I am trying to play more, learn more, and fear less. Now that other humans may view my MySpace page, I need to find someone to fancy it up and fast!
7 comments:
where are you on Facebook? I would be your friend on there. my new blog is sequoyafloater.blogspot.com
I seem to have a curse.
I am only on MySpace and barely. Did floaterlibrarian get deleted? You had some good stuff going with Tinkerbell and the gang.
I thought your MySpace page was quite pimped out. This means that I am ancient, right? Sometimes just passing behind a middleschooler viewing a MySpace page can trigger a migraine.
thanks, robin. I was sorta thinking that a MySpace page isn't adequately decorated unless it plays music and has some kind of full page rotating picture bar.
Floater librarian disappeared overnight. I swear I didn't delete anything. Let's see how long this one lasts. You must try Facebook Molly, much less pimping and just an occassional superpoke. And plus there's scrabble!
I don't know. I just finally got the hang of fixing my blogs! hey, I added a new template for statestreetbeat. it's looking snazzerific if I do say so myself.
....maybe all of us libraries need that techie-guy-who-works-at-mall to help make us seem more cool in these social environments :-)
...or at least to teach the "Pimp your MySpace account" class at the library that suggested
Thanks for being playful enough to create a MySpace page, even without pimping help!
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