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Week 4 Activities

Submitted by meredithfarkas on Tue, 2007-01-02 17:19.

Social Networking

For the social networking portion, you can do one of three activities:


Exploring Facebook

If you work at an institution that has a presence on Facebook – most institutions of higher learning, some high schools and some corporate institutions do – you will probably want to pursue this activity as many of your patrons may have profiles on the service.

Step 1: Creating an Account

You will first need to visit http://www.facebook.com and create an account. Just follow the simple instructions to do this. Once you have an account you will be able to view the profiles of people in your Facebook, which includes anyone affiliated with your institution. In my case, that is everyone with a norwich.edu e-mail address. No one else can see profiles outside of their institution unless they are friends with them.

Step 2: Create a Profile

Create a profile using the tools provided in Facebook. Make it as sparse or as detailed as you’d like. You can always delete it later if you don’t want to continue with the service.

Step 3: Looking at Profiles

Start browsing the profiles of other people in your institution. You can search for a specific person or just browse people in your network/institution. Are some students posting inappropriate things about themselves?

Step 4: Adding a Friend

Now you are going to add me as a friend to your Facebook Profile. Like I said, you will not be able to view my profile until you add me as a friend and I reciprocate by adding you. Click on “search” at the top of the page and in the search box type in Meredith Farkas. Make sure you are searching in all networks and not just your own. You will then see my picture, but will not be able to access my profile. You are going to choose the option to add me as a friend. You will then need to confirm that you want to add me as a friend. I will then receive a message that you have added me as a friend. Once I’ve added you as a friend, you will be able to see my profile and who my friends are.

What are your thoughts on Facebook? What role do you think libraries/librarians should play in this virtual world?

Exploring MySpace

It is optional in this activity to actually register with and create an account with MySpace. Unlike Facebook, you can still view other people’s profiles without needing to sign up for an account.

Step 1: Finding Patrons

The best way to find patrons on MySpace is to search for schools in your area through their search interface. http://search.myspace.com/index.cfm. If you work in an academic or school library, you can search by the school you work at under Classmate Finder. If you work in a public or special library, you may just want to look up a local school in your area. Lots of people who are not current students affiliate themselves with their former schools, so you will find people of all ages under a specific school. Once you’ve got a list of results, start taking a look at their profiles. Notice how different they all look; this is because users can change the look of their profiles using style sheets. Notice that some have blogs and others do not use this feature. Look at the discussions that go on in these spaces.

Step 2: Looking at Libraries that Are on MySpace

Take a look at some of the libraries that have build presence in MySpace (see the Examples section for this week). Do you think this is an effective way to provide outreach? Is there something you would do differently?

Explore Second Life

Download the software for Second Life and create an avatar. Explore Second Life and try to visit the Second Life Library 2.0. Write about your experiences and any thoughts you have on libraries providing services in 3D virtual worlds. Note: some individuals' computers are unable to run Second Life, either due to the speed of their computer or their video card. This is not something we will be able to troubleshoot, so if you have problems getting into Second Life, please try one of the other activities.

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