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.