There is a growing ESC network in Facebook (currently has 207 members, mostly students and alumni) that I think we might be able to tap into and help grow. Putting up and maintaining a presence would also be fairly easy.
Ideas off the top of my head:
- Create library Facebook site where students can obtain library news and ref service and get library resource widgets to place on their own profiles:
- Make available library widgets for Facebook (i.e., Multi-database, WorldCat, and Book catalog search, the library site, blog, etc.).
- Possibly offer IM ref service (e.g., via Meebo) via Facebook?
- Promote via library web site - this might help to promote library services and the ESC network at the same time and foster a better sense of community within student body
- Partner with Alumni office to promote informal academic and or professional/job search mentoring/advising between alumni and current student communities?
- could also eventually advertise library in facebook within the ESC network (I don't know details of this, but I believe it is possible and affordable). Example: http://distlib.blogs.com/distlib/2007/12/some-initial-th.html
Dana
4 comments:
Just the same, we should have a presence in myspace, second life, etc. but one thing at a time and I agree this is a good place to start. I think we should have links to Ask A Librarian, as opposed to, IM reference.
If we start doing IM reference, is Meebo the way we want to go? What about other IM services?
Facebook is the place to start, since it is geared to college students - MySpace is more strictly social and less academic in nature so I would be hesitant to get into there...
Meebo is just one option, but the best I've seen since it allows you to embed IM widgets anywhere you want.
I like the idea of having a presence in Facebook with links to many of our services. I'm not sure about the IM reference. Wouldn't we have to schedule coverage for this?
on the IM - if we decided to do it, I would suggest we just add it to the duties of the person on ref duty - I doubt the load would be heavy and we could set it up so you get alerted (e.g., audio and or visual que) if someone makes contact through it and you can also easily update the status if you are away from your desk, etc.
But certainly we could go ahead with Facebook and or LibGuides without IM service - it's just that embedding a synchronous contact point (as an additional contact option to email and phone) at those nodes is easy, so I suggested it. In addition, people using Facebook are probably more tech-saavy than our average users and might be more inclined to choose this method of communication (but that's just a guess).
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