Social software update

It's been two weeks and a day since Student Life printed an article about my involvement with LiveJournal, Facebook, and AIM. It's spring break here at Wash U, so this seemed like a good time to provide an update on the results of that publicity.

In Facebook, I have been "friended" by 3 students, 4 WU library staff, and 4 librarians around the country. The librarians found out about my Facebook presence via this blog or a discussion that I contributed to on the AcademicPR email list server. Oh, and I "friended" the Bunny--a rather bizarre statue in the center of campus, The Thinker recast as an anorexic rabbit. I'm not quite sure how the Bunny got a *.edu email address....

I have yet to receive a reference question through Facebook, but one of the other librarians did. I suspect that is because when you do a search in WashU's view of Facebook on "librarian," she is the first non-student to pop up.

I have one student friend in LiveJournal, but friending doesn't seem to be as big a deal in LiveJournal. I have started updating my LiveJournal page as a kind of second blog. I direct the entries to students because those are the people who are most likely to find me. I'm not harboring a fantasy that anyone will read it regularly, but when students do find me through the Washington University Students group or some other way, I want them to have something more entertaining to look at than my profile.

I had a number of friends in MySpace before the Student Life article--other librarians who have been experimenting with social software this year. Since the article and subsequent events, I've been friended by 5 more librarians, only one of which was a previous acquaintance.

Two students contacted me via IM.

The campus Career Center requested an appointment with me next month to discuss how to reach out to students using technology. That's very cool, because I had been looking to the Career Center for outreach ideas. Looks like we might be able to help each other.

So far, I'd have to say this has all been better for my professional networking than for making contacts with students. But I think it has potential. The article in the paper was a terrific start, but I'm going to have to build on that if I want to have an on-line presence that's visible to students.     #

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