This link has been bookmarked by 42 people . It was first bookmarked on 13 Oct 2007, by Michel Roland.
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he site was started in February 2004, and at present has over 13 million
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Facebook is the seventh-most trafficked site on the web
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registered users.
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A recent Pew Internet and American Life Project study found that “More than half (55%) of all of online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites.”
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Undergraduates are the largest users of Facebook. According to Frederic Stutzman in his article, “An evaluation of identity-sharing behavior in social networking communities”(3) ninety percent of undergraduates surveyed and twenty-two percent of graduates surveyed at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill reported using Facebook. If librarians truly wish to be where students are, Facebook is an effective way to reach them.
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In this article he mentions a comment by Stephen Abram of SirsiDynix that is most telling. Abram said at ALA that “No one comes to libraries to search. Users come to us for learning, community, and other services”. While this statement is controversial and hopefully not entirely true, there is arguably some substance to it. This is one reason why some libraries are moving to a learning commons model, and why we need to rethink the library’s role and explore SNCs as one way to communicate with our users.
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ibrarians at Penn State have found that Facebook is actually a tool that can help to more effectively and efficiently accomplish many of these already established tasks.
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A Facebook profile is an excellent mechanism for communicating with our students because it allows us to go where they already are; it is an environment that students are already comfortable with. Librarians joining and participating in Facebook have the power to be just as significant to today’s students as meeting them for coffee or lunch was to previous generations. Facebook enables users to post messages to one another’s walls much like a message board, or to send messages to one another via an internal mail system. Because students are already actively using these messaging systems, perhaps even more frequently than they use traditional email or instant messaging, our presence in the social network environment makes library services and librarian assistance extremely convenient.
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When librarians provide this information, it encourages students to make use of it.
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Email Phone IM Facebook In person Totals 4-Sep 10 0 4 9 1 24 11-Sep 8 1 3 5 3 20 18-Sep 8 1 6 9 5 29 25-Sep 14 0 5 10 3 32 2-Oct 8 2 6 12 8 36 9-Oct 11 0 4 9 11 35 16-Oct 7 0 6 8 7 28 23-Oct 7 1 5 11 12 36 30-Oct 8 2 4 10 17 41 6-Nov 7 1 7 11 16 42 13-Nov 4 1 8 9 13 35 20-Nov 9 0 3 5 2 19 27-Nov 11 0 5 6 5 27 4-Dec 6 2 2 9 6 25 11-Dec 4 1 1 3 3 12 Totals 122 12 69 126 112 441 -
All instant messenger and Facebook reference questions were received from undergraduate students.
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A recent Pew Internet and American Life Project study found that “More than half (55%) of all of online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites.”(2)
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According to Frederic Stutzman in his article, “An evaluation of identity-sharing behavior in social networking communities”(3) ninety percent of undergraduates surveyed and twenty-two percent of graduates surveyed at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill reported using Facebook
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Another important point noted by Abrahm in his article, “What can MySpace Teach us in Special Libraries?”(12) is that “MySpace and Facebook combined are reported to cover more than 85 percent of all students in high school through college. They are connecting to each other-and not just casual connections but sustainable, global connections for life”(13)
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Joseph KrausFrom the Summer 2007 issue of Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship. This paper presents data on Facebook inquiries one librarian received over the course of a semester at PSU and discusses best practices for Facebook use.
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13 Oct 07
Michel Roland
This paper presents data on Facebook inquiries one librarian received over the course of a semester at Pennsylvania State University and discusses best practices for Facebook use as an outreach tool. We discuss ways to reach out to our users through th-
This paper presents data on Facebook inquiries one librarian received over the course of a semester at Pennsylvania State University and discusses best practices for Facebook use as an outreach tool. We discuss ways to reach out to our users through this Social Networking Community [SNC] and encourage reference questions and requests for research consultations. We recommend that library professionals whose positions require them to interact with undergraduates seriously consider making use of Facebook.
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- Email inquiries were received from undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and community patrons.
- Phone inquiries were received from faculty and community patrons only.
- All instant messenger and Facebook reference questions were received from undergraduate students.
- Most in-person questions were received from undergraduates; a few were from faculty and graduate students.
While the researcher did not formally track patron type in each category, he does offer the following points regarding this data:
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- If someone stopped by your office to talk, you wouldn’t ignore them, would you? Likewise, if someone writes on your Facebook wall—write back! Wall-writing is a great way to strike up conversations both with students and your co-workers and learn something new about them.
- You might be hesitant to use SNCs because they have made some unfortunate headlines involving identity theft and stalking. However, you are not obligated to divulge personal details in your profile. If you don’t want to include information about your political views or your birthday for example, you don’t need to. At the same time, listing nothing about yourself will seem impersonal or even suspicious. Try to find a balance that makes you comfortable.
- Post items that help students with their information and library needs. Feel free to include links to your subject guides, podcasts, or tutorials. For example, if you think Steven Colbert’s ‘Wikiality’ on Comedycentral.com clip offers is a teachable moment about information literacy, you can even incorporate these types of media clips into your profile.
A few other pointers you might find helpful as you get started with Facebook:
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Because of the apparent willingness of undergraduate students to communicate with librarians by means of Facebook, we recommend that library professionals whose positions require them to interact with undergraduates seriously consider making use of this service. The recommendations above provide some basic guidelines for setting up a Facebook page, and offer some basic Facebook etiquette. We also recommend that librarians explore the use of MySpace, Xanga, and other SNCs as tools for providing reference services and research mentoring to undergraduates. Promising areas of research in this field include analysis of statistical data regarding use of SNCs; examination of information-seeking behaviors and SNCs; and longitudinal studies in both areas.
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13 Sep 07
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