MySpace and Facebook

I agree with Meredith Farkas, who wrote in her blog, "I hate the idea of implementing new things at libraries because they’re 'cool' and not to serve a specific purpose." (Information Wants to Be Free, 10 May 2006.) I had never looked at either MySpace or Facebook before this and really wondered, when I set off on this "Thing," how libraries would use them.

I joined Facebook, created my profile (sure is nice having that avatar to use!), joined 5 groups, posted to 2 walls, and sent a message to another 23 Thinger (Thingbrarian?). I was surprised that the 23 Things on a Stick group had so few members and so few wall posts!

I joined the 23 Things on a Stick group, Libraries Using Facebook Pages (something else I think we should do), and found 3 archives groups to join: Archivists on Facebook, the Midwest Archives Conference, and the Society of American Archivists. I picked the Libraries Using Facebook Pages because the librarians posting on it gave the URLs for the library pages they had created and I found it quite useful to see what they had done. There were a lot of college and university libraries on Facebook, more akin to the MHS Library than most public libraries.

I also created a MySpace page (why not!). I could tell from looking at the libraries' pages on MySpace that it was aimed more at teenagers, whereas Facebook is more for college students. The MySpace library pages tended to be labeled "Teen" pages, and the Facebook libraries that I found were almost always college libraries. I found more things for me to do on Facebook than on MySpace, where I spent a lot of the time "decorating" my page.

Again quoting from Meredith Farkas: "When you decide to put up a library profile on MySpace or Facebook, what is your goal? If it’s to look cool or to make students more aware of the library, don’t bother. A profile that offers nothing but a picture of the library, a blog post or two and a cutesy thing about how we won’t shush you just looks cheesy. I think there is a big difference between 'being where our patrons are' and 'being USEFUL to our patrons where they are.' I think some of the libraries in MySpace and Facebook have put a profile up, but they have not tried to make it useful to their patrons at all. Just putting up a profile does not make the library seem cool, nor does it make the library more visible.

"I have seen two ways that libraries have used MySpace and Facebook effectively. The first is to get feedback from students. The second is to create a library portal within MySpace and/or Facebook (or whatever social networking software inevitably will come next). "

From the various library pages I looked at on the two sites, I totally agree with this. And I also agree with a librarian's posting on Facebook that you need to put a link from your library homepage to your Facebook or MySpace page rather than relying on the users of those sites to find you themselves. I really don't think many users are searching for libraries when they're using those sites, but when they are on your site they might very well be interested in checking out your MySpace or Facebook page.

Will I continue to be a member of Facebook and MySpace? Probably not, since there are the adult versions in Thing 21. I looked for people I might know on both Facebook and MySpace but found very few. Having a MHS Library presence might just be enough for me!