[Web4lib] Facebook

[Andrew Darby]

I don't think it needs to be as time-consuming as you think.  To my
mind, the "killer app" for Facebook--at least libraries on
Facebook--is the current awareness tool that the page's status updates
provide.  When you update your page's status, this gets disseminated
to all your "fans" through their news feed.

Just as one of your friends might post that they recently made
tortilla soup, the library might note that they're hiring students for
the fall semester (with a link to the page), or need subjects for
usability testing (with a reward of a gift certificate), or that the
library closes early tomorrow, or the new Harry Potter tome has
arrived, or whatever.  Doing an update like this takes as long as it
takes to log in and type a sentence, not a big time sink.  You will
probably want to set up a page, too (where the FBML might come in),
but I'm skeptical that this is much use or used.

You need to acquire some fans, of course, for the service to be
useful.  We periodically advertise on the library's home page, and
when it first came up, we said we'd randomly award three prizes from
among the first 50 fans--and ended up with 50 fans very quickly.

Andrew

Our Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/iclibrary

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Mitchell, Michael
<Michael.Mitchell at brazosport.edu> wrote:
> I think I'm questioning the how, what, and the tools. We are a small
> library and time must be used wisely. Implementing new things takes time
> so it helps to try to think things through rather than just jumping into
> the next new thing. Anybody considered starting a Second-Life presence
> recently? I didn't think so. I do like the search widget idea and I
> apologize if I accidentally hijacked this thread with my original
> question.
>
>
> Mike Mitchell
>
> "Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an
> end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along
> with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops
> going along too."- Ulrike Meinhof
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Brian Gray
> Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:50 AM
> To: web4lib at webjunction.org
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Facebook
>
> I would not judge the value of library 2.0 by the bad examples and bad
> implementations that you have cited below. Should you not be looking for
> good and positive examples to see the value?
>
> It seem to me you are more questioning how and what your library has to
> market, rather than the tool to do it.
>
> Brian Gray
> mindspiral at gmail.com
> bcg8 at case.edu
>
>
>
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>



-- 
Andrew Darby
Web Services Librarian
Ithaca College Library
http://www.ithaca.edu/library/
adarby at ithaca.edu