Facebook

1. Facebook account:
I already had an account.

3. Things the library could do with Facebook:
I'm deviating a little bit from the directions here. My suggestions are broad areas, rather than specific things to do. 

They relate to two themes: 
(1) for faculty librarians, using Facebook to address the other two spheres of our responsibilities, outside of our library-related work: scholarship and service. Because we're required to make contributions in these areas, promoting what we do in our scholarship and service also promotes the Library as our home department.


(2) for all librarians, letting people get to know us as "a whole person"--our interests, our concerns, our activities. 

Teachers are encouraged to include, in their classroom sessions, information or anecdotes about themselves, to personalize their teaching and to relate themselves to students on a more genuine level. Librarians should do this, also, to create opportunities for more social connections with our users and with our librarian colleagues (those inside and outside the library).


Facebook's social nature is a perfect way to enhance the social nature of the library, whether as a physical space or a virtual space. If users and colleagues know more about all of us, and have more ways to connect with each one of us, that can lead to more connections and interactions with the library.

• Discuss or promote our scholarship
Library faculty could do this from our personal Facebook account, from some other Facebook forum, or both.

• Discuss or promote our community involvement or other non-library-specific service
Post about groups in the local community that we're involved with, in an informal or a formal service capacity. Use Facebook to let people know about professional service work we're doing that might surprise them, because it's different from our usual library roles that are familiar and widely known. 

• Promote libraries, reading, and information literacy by posting about things you've read, enjoyed, or found interesting
Post not just in the usual way we might think of as librarians, but in ways that let people get to know us better and see the whole person. The social aspects are in the forefront of these posts. Then, adding a URL to the library catalog, or an Open WorldCat URL, etc., would indirectly/subversively promote libraries.