***APOLOGIES FOR RECEIPT OF DUPLICATE POSTINGS*** Colleagues/ I've discovered that a Fall issue of _NextSpace_, the OCLC Newsletter, has an excellent article on "Libraries and Social Networking". The piece consists of a Q&A with Nine Notables: Lori Bell (Alliance Library Systems, Second Life Librarian and Director of Innovation), Edward Castronova (Indiana University, Associate Professor of Telecommunications), Paul Jones (ibiblio.org, Director), Hemanshu Nigam (MySpace, Chief Security Offfice), Kitty Pope (Alliance Library System, Second Life Librarian and Executive Director), Fred Stutzman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ph. D. Student), Stuart L. Weibel, Ph. D. (OCLC, Consulting Research Scientist) The Questions: How do you define online social networking? Examples of how it*s working well and not so well? What are the impacts, overall, do you think on industry, education and cultural institutions? Specifically, how do you see it affecting libraries/museums? Right now, and in the future? How can libraries best work to shape the next wave? Should they? Do you see social networking as a serious, long-term cultural and business phenomenon? I have excerpted portions of the Q&A in my _Friends_ blog at [ http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2007/12/blog-post.html ] BTW: During this Holiday Season - Give The Gift That Keeps on Giving: Subscribe to the _Friends_ blog with a Feedburner Webfeed [:-) [ http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/Friends ] Season's Greetings! AND Happy Monday ! /Gerry Gerry McKiernan Associate Professor Science and Technology Librarian Iowa State University Library Ames IA 50011 [log in to unmask] There is Nothing More Powerful Than An Idea Whose Time Has Come /V. Hugo [ http://www.blogger.com/profile/09093368136660604490 ] Iowa: Where the Tall Corn Flows and the (North)West Wind Blows ... [ http://alternativeenergyblogs.blogspot.com/ ]