Why 5 Weeks? From Eau Claire, WI

Hi all, I hail from the Univ. of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where some of us are enjoying--and some resenting--an unusually mild and snowless January. I am in this course because I'm both intrigued and uncertain about the new technologies and what they can offer libraries. We have recently undergone a lot of technological change here, and many here are burned out on new technology. The thought of adding "social networking" because it's the latest and greatest has been met with much skepticism, which I fully appreciate. However, as the mother of a teenager and a tween, I know that it's important to know about this stuff if we hope to understand or even communicate with future students.

I am particularly interested in others' perceptions of what's appropriate use of social networking for librarians. How do we guard against coming across as totally cheesy? How is our presence in social arenas (like MySpace or Facebook) perceived by students? How can we use the technologies to address real needs (ours and/or our users) and ensure that we're not just employing the latest toy because we can?

Our library has used blogs, and some of us have dabbled with IM and Facebook, but that's about as far as we've gotten. I'm really looking forward to hearing about what others are doing and thinking.