I'm very aware of the social networking sites as I have a Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter account. These are all personal accounts that are private and only people I know and add as my friend are able to view. I think if a Library wants to utilize these sites, it should be a professional account seperate from their personal account. Our library recently created a Facebook page and we currently have 58 fans. Staff added the library's fan page to their page and then suggested it to their friends. Who then may have suggested it to their friends and so on. We had a few patrons ask questions via Facebook about our events that we posted. At one particualer event, a staff member overheard a participant say he found out about the event from our Facebook page! But promoting our events is not the only way we can use these sites. We can promote materials of interest, add a popular topic for discussion, or add links to fun websites or videos to get people thinking about our library. Also, Myspace and Facebook can be set up to where your updates are automatically updated to your Twitter account so you could essentially update two social sites at once. That saves time which is valuable to librarians. I think libraries should keep up with the times and utilize what their patrons are already using and in turn reach a new audience and potential patrons. It's fun to be social! =)
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