Social Networking

I think the part that stood out for me most was that email is considered "old" and not very interesting to the social networking crowd. It doesn't surprise me that these things change all the time, but it does surprise me how quickly this happens. Also that MySpace is considered too popular for some youth.

This makes me think that libraries need not only to be a part of the social networking crowd, but that libraries need to have dedicated staff to keep on top of whatever wave is cresting. Fall behind and we've lost whatever interest we had.

I think there are plenty of opportunities to be creative and fresh as a library presence on these sites, but I think it takes a lot of time, and needs someone who does this sort of thing at home themselves, not just here and there on work time.

The Second Life networking site sounds pretty interesting, but also a time sink. I think it's the least useful (but probably most fun) setting for an institutional library presence.

I enjoyed the blog comments on some of the articles I read - the back of forth of pros and cons of libraries engaging in social networking. Sounds like a lot of people have already given it a lot of thought.