Facebook and libraries

For me another one of the more thought-provoking 23 Things. It's easy to see the attraction for libraries of having a facebook presence when facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites in the UK. Undoubtedly we want to be where our users are. I don't, however, think it is something that libraries should dive into lightly. Although presence on facebook can be seen as a platform for providing up-to-the minute information it seems to me information posted is rather difficult to organise. For this reason very careful consideration of the purpose of the presence needs to take palce. It was very interesting to see the various ways different libraries in Cambridge are currently using it - posting acquisitions, events, topical news items etc. - and the images of events certainly made a difference. Too much varied information, however, could be daunting for a 'fan' or 'group member' though. If a reader only irregularly finds something that interests them the chances are they won's stay a member of the group long or check pages regularly. Libraries also need to think about with whom they are trying to interact - other librarians, students, both? It's interesting to note the number of librarians that have an individual presence too - I'm not sure I'd want to merge the professional and social uses. However, if a library has a common page for the institution staff members on public access points need to be aware of the information being posted on it at the very least. If a reader comes in and says - oh I saw from your facebook posting that blah, blah, blah, then all library staff they are likely to approach need to know what they are talking about. For me, the Courses and Virtual Bookshelf features may be worth further investigation too as they are not things that I was previously aware of. It still hasn't really been demonstrated though how effective a tool facebook is for libraries and if it is something that is going to stay with us for some time to come needs to be investigated further. Libraries certainly can't ignore it's potential that is certain.
Image courtesy of Benstein from FlickrCC