There is an interesting link on Gerry McKiernan's blog on a recent survey carried out in the States on the uses of Facebook as a channel for engaging with library users.
"A total of 23% of respondents stated that *yes* or *maybe* they would be interested in contacting a librarian via these two social networking sites. Undergrads had a slightly higher than average percentage of 34%. Nearly half of the total respondents stated they would not beinterested, but for various reasons - the biggest reason being that they feel the current methods (in-person, email, IM) are more than sufficient. 14% said no because they felt it was inappropriate or that Facebook/MySpace is a social tool, not a research tool." Links to the full details and the pdf via Gerry's blog http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2008/01/data-students-facebook-library-outreach.html
Sunday 13 January 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
With students having such diverging opinions about this, it makes it quite hard to know how to proceed. I set up a Facebook account recently and my 17 year old son was really quite scornful (uncharacteristically so), saying that I was far too old to be using Facebook (I'm 39). I'm quite keen to explore the use of these technologies in our university library, but not if it means invading students' space. It would be good to hear of any other qualitative studies on this.
We have had similar debates within the Department, about if it is our place as tutors to engage with students on Facebook. At the moment we are taking a "watch this space" stance. If and when I come across other studies, I will publish them on the blog to bring them to people's attention.
Post a Comment