Social media??? OK how many accounts with user names and passwords am I going to have by the time I get to thing 23? The words in this post do appeal to me, however. It's the idea that library services can be user driven, not librarian driven, that I find intriguing.
The description of Reddit states, "we want to democratize the traditional model by giving editorial control to the people who use the site, not those who run it.” This I find is much to my liking. We have been searching for a way to get candid feedback from library users and non-users for years, perhaps decades, perhaps longer. I think we may have it now. If library users can rate library services in much the same way they rate movies or products online, we will finally have the information we have been vainly seeking by collecting dry and boring statistics. How many books we checked out last month is not nearly so interesting to me as hearing from the readers of those books, who can tell us why they liked them and how their lives were impacted as a result of reading them. Noble words, but unfortunately the Reddit site did not score so high on usability.
Next I tried Digg, and found it to be much more user friendly. I set up an account and recommended a website that I like to use for learning Italian, called Radio Arlecchino. Will check on it in a few days to see if anyone else likes...or rather, Diggs it, too.
As suggested by NEFLIN I looked at the New York Times online and found an article about the end of analog television, then recommended this news article on Digg. It was very easy to do. After reading the article, I clicked on the "share" button. This offered me a variety of options, such as FaceBook, Yahoo Buzz and Digg. I chose Digg. The Digg site first checked to see whether or not another user had already recommended it. When it found no matches, I had an option to select a graphic to go along with the post. I chose a simple drawing of a television set. Then I was asked to log into my Digg account (yes, another user name and password to remember). And then, tada, it was posted. I'll check back in a few days to see how popular this article is among Digg parcipants.
3/18/09 Update: So it appears that no one else in the world is interested in Radio Arlecchino, and only one other person looked at my fascinating article on the end of analog TV. OK, I can take a little rejection, and am willing to try again. (Sigh)
I read an interesting article recently in American Libraries online about the Nebraska state auditor's objection to the purchase and use of gaming equipment by state library employees. Apparently a concerned taxpayer saw a video clip on You Tube showing state library staff setting up a Wii game they purchased for the purpose of luring more teens into the public libraries, and the auditor and news reporters are now asking "is this an appropriate use of taxpayer's money?" At least one taxpayer thinks it is not. Possibly they have not heard about the Library 2.0 revolution. See the article for yourself by clicking on the link below, or better yet, go to http://www.digg.com/ and search for it!
http://www.action3news.com/Global/story.asp?S=9900719&nav=menu550_2
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YES, another username and password! :) That's funny, but oh so true. I really like some of these accounts but it was hard to pick which ones to really set up an account. I'd hate to have a million accounts floating around out there. But then again, it's tough to know which one to pick if you haven't set up an account to try it. Sounds like catch-22 to me.
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