Project Play, Semester 2, Week 5, Social Networking

I went to 3 libraries with MySpace pages: PL of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, Denver PL and Arapahoe PL WOW - I felt out-of-touch -- not so much the content as the visual images and designs of the pages - especially PL of C& M County - I felt dizzy looking at it - the other 2 pages were "more traditional" in terms of web page design. I saw lots of content similar to a teen page on a library web site -- and noticed the libraries cross-promoting a teen page on the library web site--will libraries forego a teen page at some point and rely only on social networking pages -- teen collections, sharing book reviews, teen programs were comment elements on library teen pages and MySpace pages - I liked the fashion show in Denver - lots of visual images and some conversation from teens. One easy element to add to our library page would be the photograph of the YA collection --the books themselves on the shelves - that A PL did which added a lot of color and said here are lots of books for you in a visual way -- although still had the old-fashioned YA library stickers on the spines!

I think the test for deciding if libraries have a place on MySpace or Facebook is really a pass/fail from the users -- will they come, will they become friends/buddies, if they don't want us there, we'll know ----- is it easy to count visitors, return visitors as we do with our web pages?

My biggest concern is who will design these pages -- if it isn't done at the system level, we'll have to step up our library commitment for time and training opportunities to handle not only content ideas but the "radical" designs needed -- are any libraries using teens to do the design work for them or advise them . . . .

We created a MySpace page more than a year ago but haven't really moved forward with it after our young librarian left.