The idea of virtual
communities and how libraries might use them to maintain services and missions
is a major topic today, to be sure. However,
articles such as “Academic Libraries, Facebook
and MySpace, and Student Outreach” and “Use of Facebook in Academic Health Sciences Libraries”
reveal the difficulty in reaching any kind of consensus within the
field, other than that it is certainly worth having a presence in such virtual
communities as Facebook and that there are benefits in using Facebook for outreach,
marketing and, perhaps, reference services.
Connell’s “Academic
Libraries, Facebook and MySpace, and Student Outreach: A Survey of Student
Opinion” describes the different student responses to librarians on Facebook:
from Marshall Breeding’s view that it is “unrealistic” to think that students
want librarians as Facebook friends, to Penn State’s advice that librarians
seeking friends on Facebook is probably “not the best approach” (5). On the other hand, such librarians as those
at MSU demonstrate that creative approaches to developing a Facebook presence is
possible: they initiated the project through a closed group of their student
employees and the rest followed—makes perfect sense.
While the “Use of
Facebook in Academic Health Sciences Libraries” echoes the nature of Connell’s survey;
the authors do suggest that current data—at least in health science libraries--
is inconclusive. It should be noted, however,
that the latter article does put the whole discussion into perspective by reminding
the reader that Facebook is, in fact, a social network that was
originally meant to link students together at Harvard University (such “blurring” of
social and academic entities harkens back to Boyd’s “The Culture of
Connectivity”).
Ultimately, while the Pew
Internet study, “Social Networking Sites and Our Lives,” is interesting in that
it reveals that social network users are happier, trusting, and political; the
article that seems to be the most logical—and useful for our purposes-- is
Notess’s “Forget Not the Forums.” And,
really, here we are back at the crux of the Facebook situation in regard to
libraries: librarians need to get out there and hammer it out, and we can do
this through forums, list servs, and even new forms of social media such as
Google+. Just imagine, meeting other librarians
from all over the world, at any time, to discuss and share ideas? Now that has the potential to revive dormant
relationships, indeed (Hampton)!
Connell, Ruth Sara. “Academic Libraries, Facebook and MySpace,
and Student Outreach: A Survey of
Student
Opinion.” portal: Libraries and the Academy, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2009), pp. 25–36.
Hampton, Keith, et al. “Social Networking Sites and Our Lives.” Pew Internet. 2011.
Hendrix, Dean, et al. “Use of Facebook in
Academic Health Sciences Libraries.” Journal
of the Medical
Library Association. 2009
January; 97(1): 44–47.
Notess, Greg R. “Forget Not the Forums.” Online; Mar/Apr2009, Vol. 33 Issue 2, p41.
