LinkedIn

I'm not a fan of LinkedIn so far. And I hadn't heard of it until today. To me this is just another social networking site for you to put your details into, and how many social networking accounts does one really need? It's certainly not as user friendly as Facebook (although my dislike for LinkedIn hasn't reached the same levels as Twitter) as it's very clunky. There aren't as many users on this site either, so I've struggled to find people I know. And it does seem to be mainly American.

I think the benefits for libraries are extremely limited at the moment. It will probably take a while for the site to become more widely used and therefore more useful to libraries. But I can't see it happening that soon.

Facebook

Finally we have reached the only 'thing' that I already use! I have used Facebook since I was (forcibly) persuaded to sign up at uni. Since then I have actually found it to be quite useful.

In the past I have had accounts on various social networking sites, but none of them have been as good or have lasted as long as Facebook. I use it quite a bit for catching up with friends and I like the layout and ease of use. I also don't really see all the fuss about privacy because all you need to do is have a bit of common-sense. The privacy settings are not that hard to find and all you then need to do is make sure that only your friends can see your profile. And it also helps if you only add people you know. I'm certainly not one of these people who adds everyone they can find just because they think it makes them look popular.

Facebook is good for finding out what friends and family are up to. Looking at my news feed page I have just found out that my little sister has only just got out of bed today (it is 2.50pm)!

I think Facebook can be very useful for libraries. It's good to be able to add applications like COPAC to pages and I think it would be a good place to post opening hours and feeds about new books. I guess that much like Twitter and iGoogle, etc, the success of a library's page depends very much on readers finding the pages. But now that Facebook has reached the milestone of 500 million active users, the chances of more people finding the library pages are much higher.

Facebook is also multi-generational, unlike other social networking sites, so you are more likely to get a broad range of readers finding library pages. It doesn't (yet) seem to have fallen from grace in favour of a newer, more sparkly site. There was an interesting piece on the BBC News website today about social networking: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10719042. The enduring appeal of Facebook is obvious, and even my Mum has an account (although we did need to help her set it up!).

I think it's fairly obvious that I like Facebook. I think it helps that I already know how to use it (although it does annoy me when they keep messing about with the layout and changing 'Groups' to 'Fans'). The applications for libraries are clear, although it is still reliant on library users finding your Facebook page.

LibraryThing

I like LibraryThing. It's easy to use and nicely set out. It would be really useful for small libraries and also for cataloguing private collections as it's free as well as quick.

It would be useful for showing new books or advertising special collections. I like the idea of being able to add a LibraryThing widget to websites, and that LibraryThing data can be added into existing records.

I've added a few of the books I really like and am reading at the moment so my collection on LibraryThing mainly consists of Harry Potter and a couple of classics so far. But maybe one day when I've got nothing better to do I'll go through all my bookcases and the boxes under my bed to catalogue what I have. It would be quite useful to be able to see at a glance whether I already have a book or not, although for me the idea of being able to share what's in my collection is a bit scary because I like to hide my books away from everyone so my friends and family can't come along and nick things. But maybe I'm just being overprotective...

I like that you can edit bibliographic information, so the records can be just how you like them. The only really gripe I have with it so far is that the images that come up automatically tend to be American covers, which I know shouldn't be a problem but it just annoys me. But at least they're easy to change. Maybe there's a way of setting it up so that the results are filtered to UK only records. I'll have a look another time I think.

Reflecting...

I've reached the half way point! Yippee!!!

Well looking back on my posts I seem to have been really negative about most things. Or maybe it's just constructive criticism... I'll make a resolution - from now on I have to be more positive than negative about things.

I think the best thing we've looked at so far has been Flickr. I can see how useful it could be to us at Education and I would use it outside work as well. I also quite liked iGoogle, but really only because it's a good way of procrastinating.

I'll admit now that I haven't looked at most of the other 'things' since we had to blog about them. These include Doodle, Google calendar, Slideshare and Delicious. And especially Twitter. I just don't think anyone or anything is ever going to convince me that Twitter is worthwhile.

But on a positive (!) I do feel now that if anyone was to quiz me about the things we've covered so far (is that likely to happen?) I would be able to say what these things are and what they could be useful for. I think this is a vast improvement!

Delicious

I'm going to be a bit Eeyore-ish now....

If I'm honest, I don't really understand delicious. And it's got a funny name.

I never really knew what delicious was until about 20 minutes ago and although I've done a bit a reading I'm still not entirely sure. But never mind, I'll give it a go.

I can understand why people would find the traditional bookmarking methods a bit cumbersome and out of date, but I've never really thought about finding any other way of doing it. And although I can see why people use delicious, I don't think that having to log in to an account to save bookmarks or tags is any easier. It just seems like a lot of faffing about. Bar-humbug!

However having looked at http://delicious.com/CambridgeJudgeBusinessSchoolLibraryServices and http://delicious.com/LibrarianGoddess I can see that it could be useful to libraries. It's good that you can bookmark and tag pages that you think would be useful to your students. But it does seem to be another thing that is reliant on the students finding it. Or maybe I've missed something...

But here's a picture of something that actually is delicious:

Slideshare

I quite like Slideshare. I found it relatively easy to use and I can see the benefits of uploading presentations to the site. It could be really useful to upload presentations on searching databases etc. to refresh students' memories after the event. However, if you didn't see the presentation in the first place then it could be a bit pointless because the slides lack the detail of the original presentation.

There were quite a few informative presentations about web 2.0 technologies and security on sites such as Facebook which is good for those who don't really know where to start. I also really enjoyed a slideshow with some pretty cool pictures:

The Best Pictures of the Year

View more presentations from Siam English.

Slideshare has perhaps been one of the better and more useful things we've looked at so far, maybe just behind Flickr! I guess it's just a case of making sure that what you make available on the site is useful to those you aim it at (i.e. more than just a few pictures stuck on a couple of slides, strung together with a few words!).