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RE: Social Networking
Showing 5 results.
Social Networking
8:48 AM EDT 10/24/08
Ok everyone...I know there are lots of social networking tools out out there. What I'm looking for is practical applicatons and examples of how your library is using these tools. It's great for me to know about Library Thing, Good Reads, Shelfari, Facebook, etc. but I what I really need is help in putting any of these into use in our library. As an example, Library Thing...Can I overlay this onto my ILS - Auto-Graphics? Are some of these best used in blogs? webpages?

I'd like to see examples as well as explanations (including links) of how to add these social networking applications to benefit our library. I'm not totally non techie but certainly can use the help of the tech guru's out there.
RE: Social Networking
11:57 AM EDT 10/24/08 as a reply to Carol Kubala.
Great question Carol!

Here's a current list of 50 libraries using LibraryThing in various ways, so we know they're out there.

I looked at the top three --the ones on 'review enhancements.' I can see that they're pulling in the book reviews from LibraryThing, which is a move in the right direction, imo. I've never seen much potential in soliciting user reviews in every individual library OPAC around the country---the effort is just too diluted. It makes much more sense to link to a central review-prone community.

I can see from all these examples that libraries are using LibraryThing but I would like to know more about how to do it. Do you need the help of a "tech guru"? To what extent is it DIY?
RE: Social Networking
12:29 PM EDT 10/26/08 as a reply to Betha Gutsche.
This is just the type of thing I'm talking about. From the list your provided, I was easily able to see Library Thing in action and was able to see that I would need Library Thing for libraries to include reviews or other enhancements (read-alikes, etc.) on my own catalog. Thanks Betha. Hope will chime in with their thoughts on this subject.
RE: Social Networking
Tags: social media
3:35 PM EST 11/10/08 as a reply to Carol Kubala.
This is a great question! We are using Twitter to post Bookmobile route changes/cancellations since folks can follow us on their cell phones - it's a free way to get mass text messaging capabilities (then we are pushing the "tweets" to our front page as well, so folks can see what's going on there, too). We're using Flickr to show images of library events and such on our front page (www.mrrl.org) and that has proven to be popular - people love seeing pictures of themselves on the web! I also did a series (not quite complete yet) on my blog about social networking sites and how they are being used in libraries. You can get to it via http://www.rhastings.net/archives/category/socialseries - there may be some ideas for you in there, too!
RE: Social Networking
Tags: social newtworking
8:51 AM EST 11/14/08 as a reply to Robin Hastings.
Robin, There's lots of good information and practical examples of social networking usage to promote libraries on our blog. Thank you for sharing this.