I’ve seen a fair bit of blog traffic recently about the Library 2.0 network on the social network site Ning. I’m startling similar to Jennifer Macaulay in that I’m rather neutral about the whole social community thing. You can read more of her post on her blog.
I am also usually the one up the back of a gathering hiding in the shadows and observing what’s going on. I’m not what you’d call a social person by nature, more of an introvert really. So participating in an social community where I ask people to by my “friends” is a very odd experience for me.
So far I’ve avoided the social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook, and I’ve only had a brief foray into Second Life. In particular I’ve been reading quite a bit about Second Life, both online and journal articles, and I was rather excited about it. I don’t know if it is because I’m using the Linux client, if I’m in Australia and so suffer from lag, of my broadband connection isn’t fast enough, but what ever it was my initial forays so far have been rather underwhelming.
I do participate on the Librariesinteract.info blog, which is something I fell into almost a year ago now. So far when I’ve ended up participating in a social online network it’s almost been by accident. It has been very rewarding though and I hope this exploration will be rewarding as well.
The things that intrigue me about this particular network are:
- It appears to be garnering a lot of interest in the biblioblogosphere
- Some other librarians I respect are on there including; CW, Kathryn, Jennifer and Peta
- I feel like this community has a purpose, we’re all interested in Library 2.0
It will be interesting to see how this develops and if I can learn anything, and maybe even contribute.
March 7, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
March 8, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I have to second Peta’s thanks!!
Isn’t this whole social networking thing so very odd? It is a strange concept - especially for those introverts among us. I found that I started participating really slowly - built up a couple of online friends - and before I knew it I was much more comfortable with certain online communities.
I think the Library 2.0 community on Ning is pretty fascinating. I am also interested to see how it develops.
March 13, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Jennifer,
Yes it is very odd, especially the concept of “friends” people who don’t know me, have never met me, and I don’t know them want to be my “friend”.
I can’t help but wonder about the social implications of this for future generations.
May 29, 2007 at 8:55 am
[...] I explored briefly two social networking sites. The first was the Library2.0 network on Ning.com, the second was a brief foray into Second Life. After signing up to the Library2.0 network I added those people who I’d worked with on librariesinteract.info or at least conversed with as my “friends”. I even wrote about joining the Library2.0 network on this post, and my concerns about the concept of friends on this post. [...]