Facebook/Myspace

Well I am now one of 99 friends of the Library on facebook. Congratulations to me!

The library myspace has many great and interesting tools. One is that you are able to link to all of our current programs. Each link you click on gives the user valuable information, such as a description of what the program is, when it is and where. I also thought it was quite beneficial that Ask a Librarian was available to our users right on our profile. And of course, it is nice to see the pictures the teens have been taking in our very own Camera Club and Illustrators Workshop.

Facebook and Myspace are similar in that they both allow you to connect to people. There are privacy settings on both. Myspace however lets you adjust the settings by creating your own background and designs, while facebook does not have this feature.

I personally prefer facebook over myspace. As someone who has had both accounts, I feel that I was able to connect to more people through facebook.

I think that these networking sites appeal to a broad range of people because we have become a "Now" world. People want information to be available to them instantly. Facebook and Myspace both allow people to update everyone else what is going on in their lives.

Unfortunately, I don't think that these two tools are going to explode for library marketing reasons. I think that the majority of the people who view the pages are staff. However, for the few patrons who do look at our page, it does what it is meant to do- provide information in one more format.