Reaching Students with Facebook - The Diigo Meta page

• 04 Nov 09
  

  MrsMeyers

  ksufb

• 14 Sep 09
  

  John Curry

  facebook

• 02 Mar 09
  

  Kim Bowers
  • 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)
  • 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)
• 20 Oct 08
  

  jingo74

  facebook socialnetworking

• 05 Jun 08
  

  L@jost EU project

  facebook SocialNetworks students web2.0 !!!!!!!!!! l@jost

• 10 Nov 07
  

  Wendy Clark

  library2.0 libraryspaces

• 13 Oct 07
  

  Michel Roland

  facebook librarians social_network students

  • 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.

  • While the researcher did not formally track patron type in each category, he does offer the following points regarding this data:

    
    
    • 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.
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  • • A few other pointers you might find helpful as you get started with Facebook:
      

      • 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.
      
      Hopefully you will find, as we have, that setting up a Facebook account leads to opportunities to promote the libraries, offer support to students, and get to know your colleagues.  If you’re using Facebook effectively, you may find that it provides you with a new, undergraduate-friendly medium for asynchronous communication.

    • 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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