Thing 20 - libraries and social networks

I think that the one thing we need to remember as librarians is that patrons no longer have to come to the library to use resources. We must go to them. Today, there are so many ways that patrons can access libraries - websites, chat and now social networks. I think it's great that major organizations such as ALA and other libraries have a presence on these sites.

Call me a bit old fashioned, but I still like getting a personal email from a friend. But I find the concept of the Facebook wall interesting and certainly have been checking out mine. I can see that I will probably not spend as much time in Facebook as some of my friends, but it is fun watching the activity.

For a social network safety lesson, I opened accounts in both MySpace and Facebook. What I noted is that the default settings for Facebook appear to be somewhat more secure - not everything is open to everyone like MySpace. In addition, not all of my students knew how to make their accounts more secure, or even that they could change the settings. So, while these tools are a great way to get connected, we still need to educate users (adults included) on how to use them in a safe way.