Social Networking Impressions and Experiences

Social networking sites can be used by MLA to connect members who have common interests who have not known each other before. They can be used by MLA to recruit new members, especially of the younger generation who are accustomed to using sites like this. I don't know if our State Library would find Facebook or similar sites practical at this time because we serve
an adult population that may not be into this type of thing. Privacy would also be a concern to many of our users until they felt comfortable with this technology. A blog would definitely be useful and a wiki is also something to explore for our users. I am very impressed with the types of sharing that can be done through Linkedin, Facebook and MySpace. It would not have occurred to me to that you can do a PubMed search for example in Linkedin and share it with someone. That was an eye opener. All of these social networking sites can open a whole new world. How does one have time to use all of them? Perhaps as I get more accustomed to them, I will find ways to change how I communicate with my colleagues.

Differences between blogs and wikis

The most recent information appears first on blogs followed by earlier postings in chronological order. Blogs are good for discussions on particular topics or reporting on events as in a newsletter. Wiki information is not in a particular order and the information there can be created and edited by many people. Wiki information choices are posted on one side so that you can decide what you want to look at. It reminds me of a library web page where you can click on
tabs on the sides, top, or bottom of the page and be taken to specific information pages.

Pamela: Setting up a wiki experience

Pamela: "Setting up a wiki" experience

Setting up a wiki experience

Setting up a wiki during the second week of the MLA course has been educational, challenging
and fun when I get the hang of it. My biggest challenge right now is trying to figure out how to
upload pictures to it. I took family pictures at Easter and I know the family will enjoy seeing them when I get them posted. My wiki address is http://reesfamilynews.wetpaint.com/

Use of RSS/blogs in my work

I am going to start using RSS feeds for all the library groups I belong to that send me email. That will be much easier than looking for them individually through email. I will also use RSS feeds to send me other links to library-related sites that I just use occasionally when I go to their web sites. That would save time.

I will explore using blogs at our reference desk since we do not have one there. We could use it for commonly asked questions and to push out information about our services to the state government agencies, libraries, health professionals, and the general public that we serve.