Social Networking Tools

I was somewhat leery to embark on the world of personal "reach out and touch someone" sites, such as Facebook and MySpace. While I'm not convinced that this is a solution for me to interact with others - deciding what levels of information to disclose on Facebook was a strange exercise: did I want to connect with "friends of friends"?

Like, Daniel Chudnov - a librarian/information technology specialist in the Office of Strategic Initiatives at the Library of Congress - I question the motivation of the Facebook creators.Chudnov states in an April 2008 Libraries in Communities article:
"I don't want to participate in Facebook for reasons I wrote about a few months back. One of these reasons is that my participation in the Facebook community and all the seemingly personal connections of that participation are fodder for profit making activities by Facebook itself and its business partners, salesmen, and marketing agencies alike. That Facebook turned on a service called Beacon that blatantly exploited user activities in service to this objective (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beacon_(Facebook)) shortly after my column about this ran is coincidental. I wasn't trying to predict that it would happen, I just wanted to highlight that this is what these online communities are ultimately for when they're run by people with a primary motive of making a profit."

And on a health promotion website in Canada I saw this recent post:" I am looking for any evidence, research or success stories about the use of Facebook as a marketing tool for increasing program awareness and as a point for information exchange."

Yes, there certainly are privacy concerns about Facebook and MySpace. Many examples abound of individuals being expelled/suspended from institutions, not being hired for positions or fired, and even arrested for messages posted on these public sites.

I found a lot of interesting observations in Meredith Farkas' May 10/2006 reading. She rightly points out that we need to know where are users are going, and they are going in droves to Facebook and MySpace. She states that libraries can play a valuable role in educating young people about online privacy and the possible negative effect of putting too much personal information online; also, a key is educating parents and making them get involved in their childrens' online lives.

For libraries, I can see a role in going to where users are to try to engage them, e.g. get recommendations of materials to be added to the library collection, and for ideas for programs.Indeed, my library is exploring having Facebook and MySpace presences as effective outreach and marketing tools.