More Facebook

Well, adding the Facebook widget to my library's home page is increasing our Facebook fans dramatically. What a cool tool! We'll see how many fans we get by summer's end.

I follow many other libraries around the world with my Facebook account. It's cool to "friend" or "fan" them, and see what they post, what they are doing, etc. It's a quick way to stay informed of what other libraries have going on.

I was already a member of 3 groups: Texas Library Association Members (self explanatory), NextGen Librarians (a network for "young" forward-thinking librarians), and Lipstick Librarians (just a random, fun librarian clique). In honor of this "thing," I have added a couple more:
1. Librarians and Facebook (where I can hopefully get more ideas about how to use Facebook to promote my library)
2. American Library Association Members
3. Library 2.0 Interest Group (a group interested in using Web 2.0 technology in libraries)

Facebook

This "thing" was a piece of cake because I have had a Facebook account for about a year and a half now. At first I was apprehensive because Facebook does not allow me to code HTML into my page and change the look, but once I got over that I found that I liked it much better than MySpace.

A few months ago I was asked to create a Facebook page for the library. When I went to do so, I found out that the administrator has to link from their personal profile. I am a bit paranoid about mixing work and personal social networking, so...I broke the rules and created another profile for my work persona. Now I am just trying to get the word out to our patrons that we are there so they can "become a fan" and find out about programs and events. Today I found a cute little widget that I could embed into the library's website that shows a few wall posts, fans (first name only), and the "become a fan" button. I uploaded it today, so we'll see in a few weeks how well that has worked!

Sara Miller

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