Thing 20: Libraries and Social Networks – MySpace and FaceBook

Why is FaceBook the fastest growing social network? Because everyone is going there. The perception of being cool is nine parts of being cool. The fact that you have to be signed in to use it may also be a factor. It gives it more of an air of exclusivity and privacy, like a country club. MySpace, with its garish colors and ads, seems crass by comparison.

I registered with FaceBook and joined the Library 2.0 Interest Group (because of my interest in the subject) and also found and joined the group of American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Members on Facebook (because I am a member of that Association.) After seeing an announcement that one of my AALL friends had won his age group in the Hein Fun Run at the AALL Annual Meeting in July, I looked for him on FaceBook. Alas, he wasn’t there and I had to send my congratulations by e-mail.

I know that MySpace isn’t just for teenagers anymore, but that is who libraries seem to be marketing to there, and who can blame them. Considering the number of teens who are online, it would be foolish not to try to reach them there. The number of seniors using MySpace, on the other hand, is small enough that it probably wouldn’t be worth a major marketing effort. We do get questions from teens at my library, but they are not a big enough demographic to justify a MySpace presence. Before my library decides on social networking, we will have to decide which of our communities to focus on: the courts, the attorneys or the general public. They will not necessarily hang out in the same online spaces. Like any other expansion of service, we would need to balance the cost of setting up a presence in an online environment against the benefit of how much use it would get.