No Cookies in the Library

I’ve resurrected an old Facebook account I created two years ago after my brother persuaded me to have a look. Half hour latter after I had a seen what I was expected to maintain, I closed the webpage and never logged back in. My only other experience with social networking websites has been my visits to the MySpace and Facebook pages of various artists whose work I admire. These websites provide artists with a lot of scope for displaying their work to a world wide audience, it is extremely advantageous and one of better aspects of the internet phenomenon.

The You Tube video The Facebook phenomenon talks about how Facebook may be used as a method of cyber bullying. As a school teacher this is of interest to me especially as a number of my students have Facebook sites. As well as the negative implications of this form of social networking the interview covers the opportunities Facebook presents to people and more specifically politicians.

Facebook has created a Privacy setting which allows everyone to view your page, this could be of use to librarians as it will enable them to create a facebook account which is accessible by all library users. Along with a myspace page it will allow libraries to interact with users in their preferred medium. Elisa F. Topper in the article ‘Social Networking in Libraries’ describes how students are increasingly coming to libraries straight after school to access social networking sites on the computers. I feel that the issues this creates regarding access to computers for other users could be easily overcome and that anything that brings students to libraries should be encouraged. By visiting libraries students will become aware of the other services libraries provide.

Twitter is a sweet concept like its name. Short postings are more manageable to maintain and easier to read. Discretion is still important especially as their does not appear to be any privacy control other than having a pseudonym. Professionally twitter would be a great way for libraries to communicate with their patrons. It can allow the user to ask librarians queries, recommend books and be kept informed of any news. It can also allow the user to be kept informed of any new professional development opportunities.

Despite all the positive aspects of twitter, reading the article Twitter in the Classroom on Tame the Web, my impression was that it is unwise to use it to communicate with students. Communication between teacher and student should remain during school hours and using school approved methods such as school email or software like StudyWiz. This will allow a record to be kept of the communication. Even then Email is not ideal. Also teachers and students will be able to see who the other person is following on Twitter. Teachers and students have to be careful about the way they interact.

I had a look at Quadroit, the first few posts were advertising various gambling opportunities. I would avoid this site.

While conducting this week’s tasks I came across a classic Sesame Street clip titled ‘No cookies in the library’. Click on the image above to view the video.