...many different things to many people. I really think the level to which a person gets involved depends on his/her personality, which is what's ultimately great about social networking. You can choose just how much you want to divulge, which groups suit you, and what it is you want to convey to the world about yourself. Obviously I'm approaching from the perspective of an adult and from someone who understands the risks involved in divulging too much, but I also know it's not going away any time soon, so I may as well know all there is to know about it. I'm pretty reserved when it comes to telling people about my life, so my Facebook stays fairly clean and streamlined. I do not check it everyday and actually, it doesn't really enhance my life all that much, but I want an account because I might just want to keep up with up what my old acquaintances are doing. I was all jazzed initially about it, but as soon as my curiousity was quenched about what happened to so and so from high school, I was pretty much over it.
As for my professional life, I do see the benefit of social networking and as an experiment I signed up to a Web 2.0 Ning. I had to get approval from the moderators so I just found out that I got in! They deemed me safe and non-spammy. I really like the ning communities, though. I definitely see the advantage of belonging. I was saying in the last class that I was worried that my learning community would dry up after grad school and now I know that I have access to great ideas for technology and the school library through these communities. I also belong to delicious, twitter, librarything, and a bunch of others that I don't use regularly, but probably will once I am in a position where it matters that I do stay connected.
Libraries-school, academic, public really need to be accessible by these avenues even if not all their patrons take advantage of them. The ones that do use social networking will appreciate the ease of accessibility. The ones who do not won't be missing anything and may even perhaps learn about its usefulness through the library. Not every social networking tool is going to make sense for all people and/or library, but I look at it as just another way to advertise and let people know what's going on.
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