# 22 Reflecting on the light

I’d have to say that the social networking sites are not really for me. Yes they have a use but I’d rather be outside gardening and socialising in person.

I have so many different a/c’s now and can’t remember all the passwords I used, so they are already ‘lost’. I was concerned about posting personal details on the net. Maybe they are safe at present but with the development of the technical aspects of computers who knows what the future may be able to extract.

Now to answer the question of 22..

Opportunities that online social networks offer a library……

An important part of life is developing social and professional networks, whether virtual or reality. Online social networking could be just the tool to enhance this. Social Networking provides a technical savvy way to reach out in particular, to the teen and t’ween patrons of our library who are already experimenting and using many of the social network sites.

* By providing a form of communicating and reaching out to people. Particularly our younger people. With the novelty of the technology and its inter-activeness it could prove a good means to reach children who may not be readers. Encouraging reading online, writing online and with competitions involving books, we may yet see these ‘non readers’ join the library and become avid readers…. something to plan for in the future.
It also helps us keep up with the times with technology and relate to people where they are. By providing RSS feed from our library blogsite.

*A service delivery point- Marketing library services, events and activities to the community utilising another format. E.g Flickr – used for promoting library events in a visual format or Vodcasts for virtual library tours.

*Helping librarians ‘tune into’ the different levels and interests of their patrons by participating in the online chat sessions. (or at least reading these).This could influence how we target services to interests and trends.

*As a professional tool - Others in the library profession have discovered that Facebook is well suited as a tool for developing their own social and professional networks online. This may replace or supplement list-serves that are currently used for sharing knowledge( a more controlled environment)

*Podcasts – used for storytimes and rhymetimes- valuable for those unable to visit the library. This could also be in a vodcast format.
-children recording their own book reviews as a way of encouraging and rewarding reading and sharing books.