Hi Tim,

Thanks for asking: I think that there are lots of us interested in this
topic!

Here at Warwick we don't have an official policy relating to Facebook. I
have been asked to look at it by my library management group, amongst
other social networking technologies, and what follows is a personal
reflection on what I've found so far - I've yet to report to the
management group. 

If students make negative comments about the library on Facebook then at
least we can see them. If we intervene, they may find another forum to
complain about the library that we don't know about or are locked out
from, so I am inclined not to try to get involved. 

Another perspective (see:
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/johndale/entry/marketing_the_myspace/ ) is
that staff on Facebook will look like the Geography teacher at the
school disco! (It's better not to make too much of a spectacle of
ourselves.)

Some of the groups on Facebook seem to me to be treated by the students
a bit like a "badge" that they wear: ie they often seem to join them in
order to affiliate themselves with the statement in the name of the
group, rather than to actively discuss something. The "passiveness" of
Facebook groups has been mentioned by one of the US librarians on Ning:
I think that the way the students use them is to let off steam and have
fun whilst trying to make a statement about who they are, rather than
looking for somewhere to have a serious discussion, so we shouldn't
really worry too much about the criticism. We also have groups for
people who love the library, so there is a balance out there!

My own perspective is that whilst I am on Facebook and am happily
networking with current colleagues and ex colleagues alike, it does have
something of an informal feel to it (eg the pictures of me at someone's
hen night!), that I don't feel is exactly appropriate when I am in my
"professional" mode (ie I don't really want to use it for work). I would
like to continue to use Facebook in this informal way as it seems to me
to have been created with this kind of interaction in mind, and I have
many friends who I hope to hook up with on there. However, this wouldn't
preclude me using an "official" library profile, although we don't have
one at the moment. If we had one, what would we do with it? I am keen
that we might be able to engage other University staff on there, perhaps
creating/participating in active groups and using it to advertise
events, etc. I'm still experimenting with this idea, though. 

I am enjoying Ning's Library 2.0 community at the moment:
http://library20.ning.com/
The Forum and groups on there remind me of a jiscmail list in the way
they work, but with more possible functionality, a wider reach (beyond
the UK) and obviously not through e-mail.

My investigations into social networking so far have revealed a morass
of similar social networking products/services. I suppose that whilst so
many of our audience are on Facebook, if we want to find a way to reach
them, we would do well to try to engage them there. The question is, is
it possible and if so, how? Facebook could be good for marketing
purposes, but what else might we want to use it for?

I am wondering whether the youngsters currently on other services like
Bebo will stay on there when they get to Uni, or create a new Facebook
profile. Lots of people like to re-invent themselves when they start Uni
so they may use Facebook to create a new profile, but on the other hand,
people are already used to doing info searches through Google, so they
are reluctant to make that step away from Google to our subscription
databases when they come to Uni.

I think it's early days with Facebook, and what's great is that there
are so many social networking services that we can use to share
information about our experiences of using them with other libraries and
librarians!

Other than Facebook & social networking services that could be handy for
marketing or engaging students in discussion, I think that there are
other Web 2.0 resources that are probably more well suited to the
library's core aims. Social bookmarking and tailor made "search engines"
(eg swicki: http://swicki.eurekster.com/) hold plenty of potential to my
mind. I'm also quite keen on the My Plugoo tool
(http://www.plugoo.com/discover.php) that Phil Bradley introduced me to
at his Web 2.0 course.

Happy 2.0 hunting!

Kind regards

Jen

Jenny Delasalle
Service Innovation Officer
Research & Innovation Unit
University of Warwick Library
Gibbet Hill Road
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

Tel: (+44) (0) 24 765 75793
http://go.warwick.ac.uk/riu
-----Original Message-----
From: A general Library and Information Science list for news and
discussion. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tim Fletcher
Sent: 23 May 2007 17:43
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Libraries and Facebook

Hello,

Following on from the Second Life discussion I wondered what any
libraries were doing about interacting with Facebook. I suppose this is
predominantly of interest to the HE/FE sector but may be of use in other
sectors.

I am aware that some libraries have "official" facebook groups for
communicating with students (and staff) but there are a lot of very
unofficial groups on Facebook, some of which are set up to take a quite
hostile stance about an institution's library. Does anyone have any rule
about whether library staff should participate in discussions relating
to opening hours, service provision etc - or should we just let it go
and treat it like something overheard in the bar? I should point out
that possibly due to the nature of our students Birkbeck doesn't have a
large Facebook community so we are perhaps unusual, but this also
enables us to think about getting in whilst the ground is quite fresh.

If you work in an HE library and don't know about Facebook it might be
worth finding out - although you might not necessarily like what you
see! (The use of Anglo-Saxon along with "txt speak" does rather
proliferate - especially when people are cross).

I would be interested in hearing of any official uses of Facebook as
well as what people did about reacting to user comments both good and
bad, and will of course create a digest of any responses (unless
otherwise indicated) for later posting.

Regards,

Tim

-----------------------
Tim Fletcher
 
Library Systems Manager
Birkbeck College
University of London 
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HX
  
[log in to unmask]
  
Tel: 020 7631 6060
Fax: 020 7631 6066 
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/