Repercussions of Free Social Media Tools

Hello All,

Much to my delight I am writing this post from a Via Rail train in T.O. Union Station.  I am on my way to visit my family for a week, and I was pleasantly surprised that at least for the time being wi-fi is free on the train!  Therefore, I am taking the opportunity to get a little ahead in my posting.

I want to take a moment to reflect on David Lee King’s post.  I had never thought of the potential problems that may arise from the advertisements that often come along with using free social media.  His article really brought to my attention how patrons may associate the advertisements with the library.  It seems very reasonable that a patron who may not be very internet savy, or a patron who just isn’t really evaluating the website/social media tools they are using to communicate or follow the library, would mistake the library for promoting, or endorsing certain products or advertisements.  How can the library combat this error without having to spend scarce budget dollars on social medial tools?  Will libraries need to have a public service announcement on the site much like an informercial “any views shared on this site are not endorsed by xyz library”?

Although many of King’s examples were humorous, I don’t think that it is that far fetched that disgruntled parents may hold the library responsible if their child accesses a dating site through the social media that the library uses.  Most parents consider the library and anything associated with it as safe for their children to use/be involved in.  If a child told their parent that they signed up for the dating service via the library facebook page the parent would likely be shocked and appalled, especially if they don’t understand how advertising on free online resources works.

Is this to be solved by a public use policy, education about how advertisements on free tools works?  A combination of both?

All in all, regardless of the solution and it may be a combination of different things depending on the library, King brought up possible negative implications for using free resources.  Ones that I at least had not considered.

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