LIS 9763

...not facebooking instead of blogging.
 

     I have a facebook account. I went through the "crappy ad-on honeymoon" binge phase before streamlining down to just what I wanted. I even logged in again this week after forgetting about it for the longest time. Also, it was my birthday, so I wanted to see who all wrote on my wall, but I recognize the whole social media thing is totally not me.  And it's not even an age thing (28's not that old is it? ...oh God).  I've never been much of a real life social networker, either. Seriously, ask the other students who've taken classes with me how often they've seen me outside of class.  I'm no good at the unspoken tit-for-tat code of conduct for social media that stands in for the body language of interest and attention. Reading Danah Boyd's comments on comments in her paper about MySpace was an eye-opener.  Seriously, comments as a social currency?
 ...
     Maybe that's not so odd.  In ye old days ('97-aught'3 or so), I was a deep into on a few message boards, but there it's your (volume of) comments that counts.  It's like tenure, really.
      I actually found Boyd's talk about public and private spaces more interesting, though frustrating as well, particularly coming from a librarian.  However, she's talking about the perception of space as opposed to the ownership of it, so I'll move on.
     One thing I'm agreeing with in particular of the blog posts the rest of the class have made so far is how relevant this is to us.  I have to admit the AADL MySpace page manages to not be painfully uncool, but they also haven't logged in for almost 8 months. (I think it's dead, Jim.)  In general, we have the same problem that came up several weeks ago that the academic librarian discovered when he tried to monitor social media, but had the username "Librarian".  Legal status notwithstanding, institutions and corporations are not people.  How well do you think it would go over if the Conservative Party of Canada (or the NDP, if you fear mustaches) tried to friend you on Facebook out of the blue.
     Bet your skin is crawling right now.  There is something incredibly weird about a person in the guise of a non-person trying to chat with you.  Stutzman notes in point 7 that facebook messages get better results than anything else the academy uses (lets face it, UWO email stinks compared to GMail--they'll never compete with the budget). So we need to be individuals (with tight profile security) instead of institutions when we try to connect with our userbase.
     This is the same thing that bugs me about library blogs.  Unless you're bringing in flashy content, you get pageviews by being a person with the nerve to stand up and be human in the ultimate public forum.  Maybe the best way to promote your library on the web is to stop trying to promote your library on the web.  Blog about what's going on in your community, show active interest, and it'll flo back your way.  Does your public library have a collection of music from local bands?  Did anyone (no, really, anyone) who works at the library go to their show on the weekend?  Blog or post about THAT.
     Who'd've thought real life was like myspace comments?