Kevin I agree and I want to reach out to these students especially as
libraries can be seen as irrelevant to this age group "well it's all on
the net" however I don't want to be taken for a ride. Some students
don't have the internet at home so this is the only place to work. We
don't have unlimited resources - the reverse in fact so finding the
balance is hard. There is pressure to be in facebook but so far we have
only had one instance of bullying - I think we have moved into a new way
of socialising and working and we should go all guns. However our new
students can't believe we let them on facebook without constraints
Janet
Kevin Symonds wrote:
> Andy Dawson wrote:
>> Assuming that the library provides computer facilities to support the
>> students' studies, then they are for academic use, and non-academic
>> use can legitimately be barred
>
>
> Depends on the definition of academic use. I have a friend who has
> just started university and through Facebook she already knew the
> people in her halls, the people on her course and people she'd likely
> to be involved with before she'd even started packing.
> If used effectively Facebook can be great, just as the Internet at
> large it all depends on the user. Coordinating a project via Facebook
> is good, spending an hour zombie biting or Poking your friends isn't.
>
> Depends on the ideas of the institution as well. 13 years ago when I
> started university I typed out the course handbooks for the modules
> and put them on my personal website so that when people left them at
> home they could just look at the webpage instead. I was told to take
> them down, but now it'd be unthinkable not to have that sort of
> information available to staff and students. Things change, it's just
> a matter which places change first and lead the rest of us.
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
> Kevin Symonds
> Librarian
> MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
> 15 Chaucer Road
> Cambridge
> CB2 7EF
>
> Tel: 01223 355294 ext 110
> Fax: 01223 359062
--
Janet Waters
Library Manager
Totton College
023 80 874 862
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