Thing 16 - Facebook

As a hopeless Facebook addict who half-heartedly tried and failed to wheen herself off Facebook (neither cold turkey nor gradual withdrawal worked, been there, tried that) due to the widespread concerns over privacy settings and the long-standing rumour that Facebook may one day suddenly start charging for the privilege of being an addict, I thought I knew this tool well. When I first joined Facebook, I set my privacy settings so high that even genuine (outside of Facebook!) friends who were looking for me couldn't find me unless they were friends with one of my friends. Whether this is still the case I'm not sure - Facebook sure seems to be changing its privacy policies fairly regularly and though I try I'm hardly up-to-date with the latest Facebook-induced outrage. I've read all the extra articles posted about this with interest and an inevitable sense of doom.

Setting up our Library page for the 23 Things programme (still a bit bare, but then we're closed at the minute!) actually forced me to look at various policies and I was sobered by what I found there and the acute need for training and increased awareness of Facebook's less friendly side. This starts at a younger age and I know that schools do actively tackle their pupils' acute need for an increased awareness of the pitfalls of posting anything online willy-nilly, apparently protected by the erroneous assumption that "only my friends can read/see this anyway".

I thought I knew a fair bit about the potential benefits to be had from a Library Facebook presence: controlled, reliable information that stays there and is available within a setting that most students already use, that people can flit in and out of without, and that appears magically as part of their status updates (which - let's face it - is what most people use Facebook for, along with sharing photos) instead of asking them to go to a separate page for library information. How wrong was I! A little bit of eavesdropping at one of the 23 Things help sessions ended up opening so many more possibilities promoting resources that my mind has been whirring and working overtime on this since, and I'll be doing a lot more work on our brand new Facebook Library page to promote subject-specific resources and services. Colleagues beware, I may well end up pestering quite a few of you for advice and liaising over resources on Facebook!

To finish off, I found on SlideShare a survey analysis on the use of Library Pages on Facebook, reiterating the importance of having a presence on the social sites our readers use:

Librarians, Libraries And Facebook

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Take a look and feel free to let me know what your thoughts are!