Thing 12: putting the social into social media

Thanks to cpd (and a new smart phone); I have been attempting to use twitter more. However, I find that a major problem is that big news stories often happen during the day while I’m working. Unless something happens while I’m checking my phone on my lunch break, then I’m commenting on a story or tweet hours after the fact.  I’m now signed up to LISPN and have befriended an old colleague but to be honest haven’t really looked at the conversations in the forums yet to offer my two pennies worth. I am trying to comment on blogs though as it seems weird that so many people have looked at mine but then not said anything (although I suppose if you can’t think of anything nice to say then you shouldn’t say it!)

So- are these statements true?

Social networking can lead to better communication. I think social networking can be invaluable in widening the horizons of people in the profession as well as alerting them to up and coming news stories. Coming from a public libraries background, the ongoing work of Voices for the Library is proof of how well social media can be used to unite people in a common cause.  But better communication? I’m sadly too old to use LOL or :) although people older than me (or those more grammatically correct ) would argue about my excessive use of exclamation marks!

It creates a more collaborative working space where people are encouraged to share their ideas. As mentioned before I’m a huge believer in good/ best practice and sharing ideas. There are some networks at the moment (e.g. librarians as teachers) which have massive potential for enabling this although there don’t seem to be enough people collaborating so far.......

It aids in building online communities. I’m a bit confused by this one- surely all online communities are examples of social media?

Social networking can also provide easy access to other areas of the profession. Very true- by following certain people on twitter and reading the cpd blogs I am able to stay aware of what is [depressingly] happening in public libraries as well as getting some sort of idea of what it is like to work in other aspects of librarianship that I have no experience in.

Today’s photograph was chosen for how the name of the library fits with my attitude to social media. Here I am outside the library in the Wellcome Collection