Week # 12 Wrap Up, Social Networks

Social networking sites provide an online presence for sharing news and information. Libraries can use them as an additional promotion tool highlighting news, events, and providing links to other sites. Videos, images and podcasts can be embedded. Users can sign up as a "friend" and add comments and contributions. Libraries having a social network site in My Space or similar would need to have someone managing and monitoring the site and keeping it current and topical. Such sites can stimulate interaction, discussion and feedback from clients and create a 'buzz' about a topic as they encourage immediate participation and input. Content would seem to duplicate library websites but provide more lively interaction with users. Not sure that having such a site is appropriate for us at this time.