Week 7: Building Community – Social Networking

Learning Objectives
By the end of this week, you will:

• understand how social networking tools work
• understand how social networking  tools can build community
• have explored some of the ways libraries/educators are becoming involved in online social networks (like Facebook).

Readings

• Social Networking in Plain English, The Common Craft Show (audio + video)
• Reaching Students with Facebook: Data & Best Practices, Daniel Mack, Anne Behler, Beth Roberts, Emily Rimland
• Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace, Danah Boyd
• Myspace and Facebook: What higher-ed can learn from social computing, Matthew Williams
• Crossing Boundaries: Identity Management and Student/Faculty Relationships on the Facebook, Anne Hewitt and Andrea Forte
• Libraries in Social Networking Software, Meredith Farkas
• How University Administrators Should Approach Facebook: Ten Rules, Fred Stutzman

Case Studies

• AADL – MySpace Branch — Ann Arbor District Library’s page on MySpace.
• Hennepin County Library on Facebook — A full-featured FB page for the library
• LiveJournal – Western community –  A LiveJournal space for the UWO community. Thriving!
• My Own Cafe — Home-grown social network for teens built by the Southeast MA Regional Library System.

Things to do this week

• View this week’s slideshow, which will be posted to the blog.
• Read the articles and explore the case studies for this week and post your thoughts & comments to your blog. The case studies for the week provide a number of examples of libraries reaching out to users and building community through social networking. Once you’ve explored these examples, think about some other possible ways these tools can be used by libraries and post your ideas to your blog. Don’t forget our weekly deadline for blogging is noon, Friday. Also, remember to check out your classmates’ posts too and respond (where appropriate) in the comments.
• I’m assuming you’re all on Facebook…? If not, go ahead and set up an account (you’ll need it to check out the Facebook case studies. Plus, resistance is futile).
• Just a reminder that proposals for your final projects are due in a couple of weeks (Monday, November 1). If you’d like to chat about your idea, feel free to ping me via email or IM.