Today I attended a workshop presented by the
Michigan Library Consortium entitled
R U A n00b?: Bridging the Gap Between Boomers and Gamers. The workshop was held at the
west campus of
Lansing Community College, a truly workshop-friendly venue with individual plugs at each seat and complimentary wireless throughout the building. I blogged about the final session of the day for the MLC
The Library Rebooted program series blog, but it was such a great workshop that I wanted to blog about it here, too.
The day began with a remote presentation by Lori Bell on
Second Life (she's Lorelei Junot there). Despite a few technical glitches (what's a workshop without at least a couple of those?) she was able to show us what Second Life looks like and some of the library-related buildings and areas. She also detailed some of the potential uses of Second Life for libraries and librarians. I had trouble logging in on my lappy, and then once I finally got in, the world didn't want to res very quickly, so that was irritating. It was neat, though, to see a few of us in the room all gathered around the MLC hot tub.
Angela Semifero then spoke about
MySpace, including how it works, how to set up an account, what a profile looks like, how libraries might use it (including as a way to connect with teens, a reference tool, and more), some of the potential issues MySpace can present, and in general, how useful a tool it can be. She showed some examples of library MySpace pages and talked about patrons using MySpace in the library. Angela is always awesome.
Ann Arbor District Library's gaming guru
Eli Neiburger presented
Gaming for Noobzorz: A Crash Course in Gaming for the Uninitiated (PDF). Eli is well-known in this state (and many others) for his expertise and passion for gaming. His Powerpoint was one of the best I've seen—truly illustrative and including a lot of fun graphics that engage the audience. I overheard more than a few people at lunch saying that they really appreciated his ability to take an audience from zero to comfortable with a new topic in just a few minutes. He's also super-fun to listen to even for those of us who are already familiar with his material. He spoke a bit about the brand new
Nintendo Wii and showed some adorable photos of his son, who shares his passion for all things Nintendo.
We then broke for lunch, which was, happily, both vegetarian-friendly and delicious. The buffet included Caesar salad, garlic toast, steamed green beans, cheese ravioli, and chocolate chip cannoli. (There was also a meat lasagna, I think). The dining area was an open area with comfortably spaced round tables and real table service (much nicer than the dining commons-grade flatware usually found at conference sites). We had a leisurely hour for eating and networking, and the food line moved really quickly. This is one of the best workshop dining experiences I've had. Kudos to LCC!
After lunch,
Superpatron Edward Vielmetti talked about “Everything Else.” Vielmetti spoke about how libraries are still essentially about books for many patrons and that sometimes library technology can get in the way of actually finding them. He showcased some of the neato things that the
Ann Arbor District Library has been doing with their
SOPAC, including tagging,
dynamic item recommendations, and the cute old-fashioned
catalog cards we all remember so fondly. He also introduced a myriad of social media tools, including
Library Thing,
Twitter, tagging,
del.icio.us,
Flickr, and more. He easily illustrated his point that there are a multitude of opportunities for people to participate in communities using social media tools. Vielmetti sees that the library website (including blog, OPAC, etc) can become a social network for patrons, and that this kind of community involvement can only be good for the library in the long run.
The final session of the day was a
Facebook Panel Discussion, moderated by the lovely and hip
Monica Harris. Five college students participated:
Matt, 23,
Michigan State University student, Facebook user for 2 years, first video game:
Zack McCrackenKate, MSU student, Facebook user since it started, first video game:
Oregon TrailPrecious, 19, MSU student, Facebook user for 1 ½ years, first video game:
Duck HuntLauren, 19, MSU student, Facebook user for 1 ½ years, doesn't play video games
Katie, 19, Lansing Community College student, Facebook user: 6 months, first video game: Oregon Trail
Disclaimer: I did my best to transcribe what the panelists said, but I'm sure to have missed some things and possibly mistyped others. These are not exact quotes. (If you're a panelist reading this and I made an error, please let me know.)
Q: How would you describe/define Facebook?Lauren: Facebook is more local than MySpace. It was originally through your college (you had to have college email address to participate). Facebook allows you to search by school and hometown so it's easier to find people. All the info you put in turns into a link, so it's easy to click and see everyone else with the same info.
Precious: Facebook is a way to connect with people from high school. It's a younger version of Reunion.com. I got on to Facebook to stay connected to people I wasn't directly in contact with anymore. People update their photos often and events are posted in advance.
Katie: It's a great way to get connected with people before you leave for college (during the summer after high school). It's a great ice breaker. You can say, “I saw you on Facebook.”
Q: Do you use Facebook for other purposes? Dating?Katie: Not so much for dating. It's more of a friend thing.
Kate: I coordinate a residency program and I regularly looks at Facebook with an eye toward who to hire. Many people don't seem to think about employers looking at their accounts.
Precious: I knows that my boss does look at Facebook before selecting interns. Because it was available only to college students in the past, many might not realize that it is now very public. I know some people that have not been selected for internships because of their Facebook profiles. There was quite a bit of resistance (among those with profiles) when it first became public, some started petitions and such. I use it for clubs at MSU, because all events and info are listed there. People check Facebook more than they would be likely to see a poster on a bulletin board.
Lauren: In the past 6 months I've used it for finding information on having a particular surgery. I found others who described their experiences having the same surgery. I created a group when I was running for an elected position so I could easily make connections with potential supporters.
Q: How has Facebook changed? Who was allowed to use it before and presently?Matt: It started with a small group of universities and then branched out to students at other universities. Then it opened to high school students, and now it is open to anyone (like MySpace). Before it opened up, there weren't as many privacy settings on Facebook as there are on MySpace, but more have now been added. In order to see full profiles of students from any university, you have to be friends with someone from that school. You can use it to get out political messages, which is useful (for example, there are groups focused on issues such as those presented in the movie
An Inconvenient Truth) in providing a direct link to a person or group of people, which is handier than a poster.
Q: How many friends do you have on Facebook and how many of them do you know in real life?Kate: 97 friends; I know them all in real life.
Precious: 405 friends at MSU and 900 friends altogether. I know them all in real life.
Lauren: 350-450 friends at MSU and 500-600 total. There are a large number I don't actually know. You add someone to your friends because they seem like they might be cool to hang out with, but it never happens and you keep them as your friend. Many are also acquaintances who you don't know well.
Katie: 300 friends; I've met everyone at least once, perhaps in passing. I probably know most of them fairly well.
Matt: I guess the choice is to lie or to look like a loser. 75 friends at MSU and 100 friends total.
Q: We've all seen the news features showing a kid who claims to be addicted. Do you find Facebook addicting?Matt: No. It's in my Internet rotation. I check it maybe 10 minutes, 3 times a day.
Lauren: I don't need an intervention or anything, but if I'm not busy, I could spend 10 hours a week easily. If I'm pulling an all-nighter, I'll stray from Word to Facebook and it's suddenly 3AM and I'm looking at groups and what my friends are doing. At times it can be addicting.
Precious: I think it's addicting. I tried to quit. I know people who tried to quit and then came back. If I quit, it'll take too much time to re-find everyone. There are people who I went to Kindergarten with and they found me on Facebook and I remembered them, and we're friends all over again. Now I know a lot about them. To reconnect strongly with people I hadn't seen in years, that's when it became addicting. You think of someone and wonder if they're on Facebook. There are so many interesting groups, like I saw one that was: “Join this group if you or someone you know has been run over by a CATA bus.” It becomes multifaceted and interesting. It's nonacademic, but you get the pleasure of looking at pictures and reading profiles, which is so much more interesting than studying. That's when it becomes addicting. Just like
AIM. There are groups like “Facebook and AIM are making me fail out of college.”
Lauren: Every time the page is refreshed it shows six of your friends and it rotates, so you'll see someone you forgot about and you have to see what they're up to. It's definitely addicting.
Q: Do you care about how many friends you have? Do you judge people by how many friends they have? Do you judge people based on the comments on their profiles?Lauren: I wouldn't want to have just, like, four friends. I would wonder why the person wouldn't know more people out of the thousands of people who are out there. If anyone asks to be my friend, I always say yes. I might limit what they can see of my profile, but I always add them. I do look at and wonder what someone might have on their comment wall. Sometimes a really quiet studious girl will have a graphic description of what happened at a party and it makes you wonder.
Kate: I don't care that much about how many friends I have. Sadly enough, the best thing is that I can look at people from HS who I don't want to talk to again but I can find out what they're doing with their lives. We don't want to talk to these people, but we want to know what's going on in their lives.
Q: Is there comment etiquette? Do you need to comment back when someone comments on your wall?Kate: It's rude not to comment back when someone comments to you. I realized I didn't comment back to my old roommate and she's probably mad at me now.
Precious: Most of the kids from my graduating class are on there. 90% of them I wouldn't want to see in real life, but I check their Facebook to see what they're doing. Some people you're happy to reconnect, some you reconnect with to see if they've got gossip. There's just something about knowing what people are doing and so much about them. You can read anything about any kid and know everything about their lives in two hours.
Q: Do you include your address, phone number, or other personal information on your profile? Do you use your real photo?Lauren: I don't have my real photo as my main photo but only because I found a cool bumper sticker to use right now instead. I have my real dorm address, but if you go to MSU you can find that easily anyway, so it's not a big deal. Before I came to college, I was able to find my roommate by putting in my address and clicking on it to see who else had the same one.
Katie: You can have your dorm info, but I don't put my phone number out there. As far as pictures, you can get tagged in a million pictures every weekend.
Q: How many of you have more than 100 pictures on Facebook? 3
Q: More than 200? 2
Q: Can you tell us more about what tagging a photo is?Katie: Tagging a photo is when someone posts a photo and they put a little box around your image and label it with your name. From your profile, there is a link to all photos you've been tagged in. This can be bad with job interviews, etc. The majority of people in this room went to college and they know what goes on there, so there are a lot of pictures out there of all the illegal things that are going on.
Lauren: You can untag yourself in any photo, so it's not hard to undo it, but it would take a long time if you're tagged in a lot of photos. There is nudity out there and some people may not know about it. It's not allowed but people upload photos containing nudity anyway.
Q: Why do people feel comfortable putting these things out there?Lauren: Because it started out as open to college students only, people knew employers couldn't look at it. I would recommend people use the privacy settings that are available to them.
Matt: I feel like there's a certain view that it's “just Facebook.” People don't take it as seriously or think about employers. You can use it in that way (looking for potential employees), but it's not the original intent. I don't feel it's designed for that kind of thing so I don't feel uncomfortable with it. It's just me and my friends sharing stuff.
Precious: When I first got on, it was just a fun time, a way to connect. The best way to do it was pictures. At first it was just photos of parties for members of clubs, fraternities, and stuff, just for you and your friends to look at. Now that it's open the orientation of Facebook has changed. When it started, it was as a Harvard student's programming project. He never intended it to get where it is today. It was just something private for him and his buddies and it got bigger and bigger.
Fact: Facebook has more photos than many photo-dedicated sites including Flickr.Q: Do you feel like older adults sometimes misunderstand sites like Facebook and MySpace? How would you explain their fears about privacy? I see a lot of news reports about these sites and in the library community focusing on privacy of personal information and fears about predators. Do you feel that's overblown or valid?Lauren: My mom was all, “be careful – employers are going to look at that.” I don't put any info out there that I don't want just anyone to know. I would never put my address on MySpace, but I feel safer on Facebook because when it started, it was just people who could find me anyway. For adults, their social networks are all in-person, but in college you don't have time to do that so this gives you a way that you can still connect with people. My friends who live far away can stay in touch using Facebook. It's virtual but still very real. You don't have to set up a lunch, you just send a message on Facebook.
Kate: In some situations concerns are valid, particularly with MySpace. My 13 year-old cousin has a MySpace, and when I looked at it I thought, if a 50 year-old man looked at this, he'd enjoy it. So I see the concern that we're putting so much of ourselves out there that we're leaving ourselves open to be taken advantage of. The other side is that if parents are using Facebook or MySpace and being involved with it with their children, it's easier for them to say “make sure you use this privacy setting” and such. They can encourage use of it while still having safety features.
Katie: I agree with Kate as far as MySpace goes. It's much broader and not so networked. In Facebook, you join a particular network (based on school, geography, etc) and people outside that network can't see your profile. That makes it a lot less scary. MySpace is a lot less personal, less safe. Any weirdo in the whole wide world can look at your profile.
Matt: I think that's a really good point. The structure of Facebook is much different than MySpace. There are bubbles of groups (networks) but MySpace is not like that. If I click on some random person on MySpace, they're always in my extended network but I have no clue how. Everyone on there is connected somehow. There's not a noted structure; no networks of people. Facebook seems safer as far as personal information goes.
Q: Most of you have said that you like Facebook better, but four of you do have a MySpace profile. Why?Matt: Why not?
Kate: Originally I made a MySpace profile because I had friends who didn't go to college or were older and not in college so they couldn't get a Facebook. So I use it to check up on people who aren't on Facebook.
Audience Q: It seems like MySpace is becoming five-minutes ago (it's too big, everyone's there, it's too commercial) and Facebook has a cooler appeal, but now that it's open to anyone, it seems it might be not as cool. What's the next hot thing that has more exclusivity?Matt: I wouldn't say that MySpace is five-minutes ago, it's just not as well-designed as Facebook. MySpace is slow, has design that isn't clean, and it takes forever to log in. Facebook is easier to use and better designed.
Precious: Unless someone is brighter than that Harvard grad (who created Facebook), there won't be anything better than Facebook. Now you can even give gifts (this service just started a few days ago)! I used it even though I don't really understand it. Every college has its own social networking system and that is totally private. It takes the place of the old Facebook. I know MSU and
Ferris have them already. You use Facebook for what it does and the private college one for more private stuff. There were benefits to Facebook opening up, not as many as there were problems, but it does have good things. I don't think people would hop on another bandwagon.
Lauren:We don't want exclusivity back on Facebook. It just created more bubbles so you can connect with those who aren't college students. You don't have to be open to them but you can be. I don't see a problem with it being open.
Katie: MySpace is slow and ugly and difficult to use sometimes but it is a bit more personalized than Facebook and that's what I like about it. You can put pictures on your profile background or other silly things that make it more personal to you. The only thing on Facebook that isn't cool is that everyone's page is the same and the only personalized part is the info they provide.
Audience Q: What do you think of Second Life?Kate: I have no hand-eye coordination so it was really frustrating the first time I tried it and I haven't used it again. I had no idea what I was doing. I kind of followed the tutorials but I couldn't walk. For me personally I don't like it because I don't have the dexterity to make it work.
Audience suggestion: They need to combine the Wii-mote technology so that it's easier to walk.(The rest of the panel has not used Second Life yet.)
Audience Q: If your college library had a presence on Facebook, what would you want to see there?(silence)
Kate: MSU's library website is amazing. It would be cool if there was a catalog search right from Facebook. It would also be cool if they could tell you in Facebook when your books are due or renew them right on Facebook. It's not a big deal because you can open the library site in a new tab, but it would be handy to have it right in Facebook.
Audience Q: How do the bubbles (networks) work?Matt: Unless you're friends with someone or in the same network, you wouldn't be able to see their profile. Your college email address (domain) sets your network automatically. Anyone outside that network, you'd have to search for them and add them manually. If you're both in the same geographic network, you can view each other's profiles.
Audience Q: Will you keep up with it after you graduate? Do faculty members have Facebooks?Precious: TAs and some faculty do.
Lauren: Some profs say you have to wait until you're out of their class.
Precious: The prof in my friend's music class wouldn't let students add him. He said, “as soon as you're not my student, I'll friend you.”
Audience Q: Do you think that the security is better on Facebook than MySpace?Matt: The security is a bit better on Facebook because of the type of programing that is used. MySpace has had holes (security issues). At some point, even if your profile was private, you could make a certain change to the URL and it became visible. That has since been fixed, but there are some other issues like that with MySpace.
Kate: You have to be a Facebook member to look at profiles.
Precious: You can Google anyone and come up with their MySpace. I'm glad you can't do it with Facebook.
Katie: On Facebook, people can't see your profile unless you're friends with them. With Facebook, it says whether you're in college or not. We're all over 18 and on MySpace it's harder to pick out the creepers.
At this point, time was running out and the audience raised no further questions for the panelists. I found it very interesting to hear the panelists' impressions of the differences between Facebook and MySpace. I think some of them may have been unaware of the security features MySpace now offers (my guess is that because they use it less, or not at all, they just haven't seen that those options exist). This issue of what is often thought of as private information being made public is quite intriguing, and I found the panelists' perspectives very insightful.
All of this technological innovation in libraries is so exciting! I feel like there's so much we as library workers can do to engage our communities, and both connect with them and help them connect with others. Not very many libraries are as innovative in terms of social networking as
Ann Arbor, but not many libraries have dedicated the resources that they have. Libraries should make the commitment to employ IT staff who are skilled and have ideas, and they must also listen to the ideas the staff (all staff, not just IT) and patrons present. Even those libraries who may not be able to make staffing changes right away should embrace the technology that is readily available (and often free, as in the case of MySpace and Facebook) to make these all-important connections with their patrons. All in all, if you feel like a n00b, you should know that there are resources available to help you: workshops like this one, expertise offered by colleagues and peers, and the knowledge and interest of your patrons. Use that social network until you feel l33t.
Labels: libraries, MLC, social networking, technology, workshop
