Finding a space on My Space

I liked the fact that some libraries in the US have created My Space profiles especially the Animanga Club at Coshocton Public Library. These are 'friends' of ALA's My Space and this lends credibility to the idea of developing at My Space site for my library especially for Youth Activities as kids would probably tap into My Space more than they would the libraries website or a blog on its own. Having said that the article on NEWgrist about a museum on My Space, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, says that The Walker identifies itself as an 80 year old woman interested in community engagement and enrichment. when it promoted a show on the recently launched MySpace page the show sold out within days. Obviously not just youth are using MySpace in the US. The map on Le Monde showing use of different social networking services in different parts of the world indicates that in the Pacific MySpace is used less than Friendster and Rotorua Public library uses Bebo which doesn't rate at all in the Le stats. Perhaps this does not show the true picture in Australia.

Like my colleague Annetta I am very excited about social networking sites for use in libraries and I have found useful discussion to use to convince the IT department that we should be able to use it.
The article from the powerhousemuseum.com site outlines how museum's can benefit and it is not hard to related what is said to libraries.

At Auburn Library I can see the use of Flickr pools as a way of energising library patrons especially young people.

And I have been energised by as I have learnt about social networking and the possibilities for libraries has dawned on me. Thanks very much to the team at the State Library for the Web 2.0 project. I have really enjoyed participating once I sorted out when and where to access a PC to do it on.