Wednesday 21 July 2010

Facebook and libraries



My attitude to Facebook has been the same for a while: I use Facebook for real life (it is possible to have one outside of work, honestly) and I don't intend to create a sanitised version of that life, not even to attract future employers. I wouldn't try to contact a work colleague or library reader via Facebook any more than I would turn up at their home. This attitude clearly isn't going to be useful for networking but I'm happy to use other means to get in touch with people.

However, many librarians see Facebook as another opportunity to pursue their elusive customers. "Facebook is used by lots of people, so let's use it to contact them." Well, so is Tesco, but I don't plan on camping out there with a library poster.
I'm not yet convinced of the need for a Tower Project Facebook presence. There may come a time when a cool professor laughs at my antiquated email request to meet her in the tea room, and I'll have to FB her instead but I'm not there yet. Other people are doing it very well, judging by the Facebook pages for eg. Jerwood Library at Trinity Hall, and the Classics Faculty Library.

3 comments:

  1. Great argument and I love the image!

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  2. Librarians do have lives outside work and it might be interesting for our users to realise that.

    ReplyDelete