Social Networks and the Library

I have seen My Space before and my kids have their own myspace pages and I had heard of Bebo and Facebook but never really looked at them before now.
I found Rotorua Library on Bebo was quite interesting and easy to navigate. I prefered it to the British library on Facebook.
It is another impressive tool to engage the younger generation and encourage them to participate in the Library even if it is in a virtual world.
I did not like the look of Second Life and the interactive chat room aspect. (I didn't spend much time on it though as it didn't appeal to me from the start)
I can see though that social networking sites such as My Space, bebo and Facebook could be very valuable to promote the library, library services, library events such as visiting authors and to highlight parts of the library collection.
Exciting times lay ahead of us!

Online applications and tools

Google docs

Well what a fabulous tool for those working and collaborating together. The concept of Google Docs has implications for changing the way we work together regardless of where we are in the world. (Now there really is no excuse for going on holidays and missing a deadline!)

Mash ups

I was a bit daunted by mashups at first but I found Big huge Labs really easy to use.

I put together a mosaic from the BookFair I hosted at my local school earlier this year.



I can see there is huge potential to use these tools for book promo, themed displays of photographic collections, competitions and however else we can engage library users.