Poker Face!

Aside from sillier things and the personal aspects of Facebook for keeping in touch with friends, writing "hello" on someones wall, viewing pictures, checking horoscopes, games such as Farmville and organising parties; Facebook does have a lot to offer libraries and their students.

I set up a Facebook page for the Library in Easter, as I mentioned previously in my first post and have to say that its been well received.  Although we haven't had as many students become fans since then (we're now up to 79), we do see it as a way of publicising events, new e-resources, linking to relevant widgets such as Jstor, Copac, UL and disseminating information updates to the students.

We have been lucky that it has been promoted not just by ourselves but also by Tutorial and the Senior Tutor.  I am hoping that we can gain some more members after Freshers fair from the new student intake in October.

I realise that some people are sceptical about the use of Facebook and say that it maybe an infringement into student lives, but its their choice at the end of the day, whether they choose to look at it and actively use it as a way to keep up to date.  So if the students don't wish to become a fan, we don't mind as this is not our only means of getting information out to students. We also have rolling screens, put information on our Library catalogue, use Twitter, traditional email and the add news items on the college webpage.  It all helps.  I still believe that we need to use as many methods as possible to promote what we do and advertise library services, as students learn and access information in different ways. 

Having looked at those other libraries in Cambridge with Facebook pages, we all seem to be using it similar ways.  I notice a few have used Bookshare, which we haven't as yet, although if we start a fiction section it could be good way promoting books, or advertising our latest accessions.  I may look into this at a future stage.  In addition I think the discussion board could be a useful tool for library suggestions or for getting items for library committee!  I would be interested to know if anyone else has had any success using the discussion feature.

You can't judge a blog by its title

Having just read the news that Cam23 now has 100 bloggers, now is perhaps not the best time to get to Thing 4 where perusing other people's blogs is the order of the day! Oh well as Shakespeare wrote "Once more unto the breach, dear friends".

I'm particularly drawn to read the blogs of those with unusal names which pull me in to see what they've got to say, for example Girl in the Moon, Whispers in the wilderness, or On silent white wings.

 

Similiarly the posts with interesting titles in Google Reader also do the same thing, for example How I learned to stop worrying and embrace Gaga, Batgirl and me or the disorder of multiple personalities and How google calendar is just a little bit like a trip to Lakeland

I think commenting on people's blog posts gives us an oportunity to discuss ideas, be reflective and think about how someone's else opinion affects your own, even if it can be a bit scary sending your views out into the wilderness of cyberspace.  One of the main advantages of having an anonymous blog, is it gives you a voice without exposing your identity in public.

Trying to make my own blog more exciting has been proving difficult. I couldn't seem to manipulate blogger into allowing more individuality in its layout, for example moving my picture next to the header. It could just be of course that my html skills need refreshing! Maybe Wordpress users are finding that easier to use.  Images that only seemed to want to appear "Centre Stage" as it were, with no variation after being uploaded. Having just said that and been playing around in Dashboard I've just found an updated editor which does exactly what I want!  Shame I didn't know about this before, its a steep uphill curve, this learning web 2.0 lark.

 

As for capturing screenshots, I must admit I always use Irfan View, (affectionately called "splat" by computer colleagues in another job, due to its squashed against a window look! ). Its excellent at capturing screen images and cropping them down to a specific area. Although I notice its not in the top 10 list of free software.

To conclude the more I blog, the more I enjoy it.  I am now thinking that as well as having a library Facebook page, a blog could be a fun thing to do as a method of interacting with students, and advertising library services.  Who knows "Librarians do Gaga" on You tube could be the makings of a blog post to advertise training sessions.