Facebook

I have very reluctantly signed up for Facebook. It's never interested me. It's hard enough finding the time to check my emails everyday. When I do have spare time, I don't usually like to be in front of the computer. I prefer interacting with people in the flesh.

That said, once signed up I had an enjoyable online chat with one of my best friends who's just had her second baby. Any contact with her is welcomed since I see her reasonably infrequently. So already my previously black and white negative perception of Facebook is changing.

One of the main reasons that prevented me from signing up in the past is that I didn't want to be accessible to a whole bunch of people I hadn't seen for ten years. I have now learnt that you can alter the privacy settings so that you are only made accessible to people of your own choosing.

In regards to using social networking in a professional context, I think it provides a valuable tool in establishing and retaining existing contacts with people in the profession whom you don't see on a regular basis or people you don't see at all because they live on the opposite side of the globe. It removes barriers and allows for free flow of information. From its origins in a university setting, it became amongst other things, a forum for scholarly conversation and intellectual exchange of ideas.

Facebook taps into the grassroots notion of community building, which is fundamental to all public libraries. It provides patrons and staff with another platform for the collection and sharing of information. Facebook, like libraries, feeds on information seeking behaviour in all its forms. The ease of using its many applications, means that anyone can learn to use technology creatively. It engages people to be proactive and interactive rather than being just a passive sponge, in the one dimensional absorption of information http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7017.pdf.

I think I've just done a 360!