Myspace Profile

I have had a myspace account for a while now. I find this website and my page very easy to navigate and user friendly.

I thinkt that it is so popular because it enables you to do so many things. You can make plans with friends, keep in touch with people you never have before, make new friends, find out about different events going on in your aread, find new bands, find out where and when their shows are, etc.. Businesses now even have their own pages to keep you up to date on what is going on. It is an easy way to keep in touch and it does not require a lot of time. It is your own personal website, but you can keep your information private and only let people see it if they are your friend. You have to approve everyone that is your friend, so it really isn't as dangerous as perceived, except when people don't take their own precautions (which are available and talked about all the time).

411 on Social Networking

Should Virginia Beach Public Library use Social Networking sites to connect with teens?

As a Teen Group Leader in this system, I think it would be wonderful to use social networking sites to communicate with teens. I think that they are a tool that has much potential in the library department. Already, CL coordinators and teens communicate by email. It would be so nice and easy to also post a bulletin letting our teens know what is going on with meetings and such. I believe it would also be a great recruiting tool. If I am a "friend" of a teen council member and one of there other friends sees that, they could find out more about it and join.

I thinkt that we are sorely lacking as a library department by not using social networking with our teens.

Reader's Advisory Wiki

I posted my favorite book on the Reader's Advisory Wiki today. I have used Wikis before, so it was relatively easy for me to figure out. However, if I had not used them in the past I don't think I would have found it an enjoyable experience.

There are no directions on how to use them, the user has to figure out that to add something to the page, it has to be edited. Also, if you change what someone else has written and hit save, it saves it. I understand this, but I think there should be some kind of a warning or something to let someone who has never used a wiki before know it.

Library related blogs

I used the search engines that the Virtual Librarian provided for us to search for library related blogs. The only one that was not helpful was Feeder and that was because the site was down for updates.

Topix was great and I loved how you could search by keywords, news and/or blogs and zipcodes or URLs. This made searching what you were looking for easier because you could narrow it down if you wanted to.

I enjoyed the site Technorati and would definitely use it again to search.

I loved finding the library related blogs and seeing what other people in library land had to say!

Wiki

As a member of the All Staff Training Day here at VBPL I have been using a wiki for over six months. It is such a great tool to share information. It is wonderful that anyone can update it and that it is available to our whole team. We do have it password protected so we are the only ones who can post. Also, we can be notified when anyone changes anything!

I think any sort of team could benefit from using a Wiki to keep up to date. Also, libraries as individuals and the library system as a whole could use a wiki to share ideas and information. isn't that what libraries are all about?

Instant messaging and reference at the library

The library staff is great at getting you the answers you need while doing IMing. They are professional and efficent as well as being polite and giving great reference interviews over the computer, if your questions are more indepth.

Instant messaging and reference at the library

The library staff is great at getting you the answers you need while doing IMing. They are professional and efficent as well as being polite and giving great reference interviews over the computer, if your questions are more indepth.

IM and Libraries

I think using instant messaging in libraries is a great idea. IM reaches a different type of library user than the ones that come in to view our books or use the internet. It reaches those who do research on the internet and those who are computer savy.

For people who are in a rush, or already at a computer, IM is great. You just click a button and get your answer!

IM and Libraries

I think using instant messaging in libraries is a great idea. IM reaches a different type of library user than the ones that come in to view our books or use the internet. It reaches those who do research on the internet and those who are computer savy.

For people who are in a rush, or already at a computer, IM is great. You just click a button and get your answer!

RSS

I think that RSS feeds are great. It saves time when you are looking for the same information everyday. Also, you can link to webpages and other people's blog postings.

I really did not like Bloglines. One disadvantage I found about Bloglines is that it was not very clear on how to set up. I couldn't find certain buttons and had to navigate sort of aimlessly at first.

Google was very easy to set up and I will be using this account in the future.