Thing 21~Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

I explored several of the social networking sites and read the articles. I really think it is important to reach out to the students to make the library an important part of their education. Getting students involved in social networking might bring in more students. Whoever, my school has blocked out some of the social networking sites, like MySpace and Facebook, so having a social networking site would be very difficult. MySpace and Facebook are sites that my students are comfortable with using. Having a social networking site would be taking some of the students out of their comfort zone. Which could be bad or good.

WebJunction

What can I say? There is so much. From professional development to building your technology, to managing your resources; there is just so much. I would be interested in finding out if there was CEU’s for join in on the WebJunction archives as well as the live presentations. I think a person could spend days on WebJunction and only scrap the surface. I looked at web conferences and discussion boards. As I was looking through some of the Discussion Boards, I ran across a site where you can share your documents and they can be edited online (like in Thing 9). http://www.yourdraft.com/

Library 2.0

Ruth had given me the site Library 2.0 a while back to look at what other libraries are doing and how they are collaborating. I visit the site frequently and search through the groups. I have not joined a particular group but find it interesting how everyone is willing to share their information and open to suggestions. I will try to keep up with the Library 2.0 social networking site and join a group. I just haven’t found a group that I think will work the best for my library. As I continue to go through the 23 Things, I start to see how all of this fits together as a whole. When I first started, I thought great 23 Things to use but how can I put them together to make them useful not just 23 more things to think about in my already busy day. I see how the Social Networking can be useful for teachers and libraries to interact with each other in the building as well as throughout the world. With cuts that schools are making, it is important to show how much a library is used and why it is important to keep the doors open. So many times libraries are the first things cut out of the budget. Who are we hurting? The students. We are not allowing them to have a safe place to study or network with staff or students.