(week 7) "anything technology related"

Lately I've been investigating ways libraries are using the social networking site Facebook (FB) to promote their collections and services.

In particular I've been looking at the FB applications (widgets) libraries are developing so that FB users can add links to library services on their personal profile pages.

In my observation, very few libraries seem to be succeeding in this venture. When users have to choose to add an application to their profile page, a page which is a representation of their personality, their likes and dislikes, that's an extremely tough market to crack.

To be fair, it is early days for library applications, as libraries have only been able to create widgets since May. However, it has to be said that none of the library apps seem to have captured the imagination of FB users. Considering that Facebook has 43 million active users (including very high numbers of US university students), I think we can safely categorise their usage as low.

Here's a snapshot of some of the library-specific apps on offer (and their usage levels as of last month):

Mini Library
A basic search interface, which allows users to "search Europe's national libraries and find millions of resources across Europe", but which produces vast, unwieldy and inaccurate results.
13 daily active users

UIUC Library Search
"This handy widget searches the UIUC Library catalog, as well as some of our journal article databases, right from Facebook. It's convenient!"
3 daily active users

Ask a Librarian
"Get help from librarians all over Florida using this application of Ask a Librarian."
1 daily active user

LibGuides
"LibGuides enables you to access the content from your library in facebook. View guides related to your courses, chat with reference librarians, or search the library catalog."
3 daily active users

LibGuides Librarian
"LibGuides Librarian enables librarians who use LibGuides to display their Guides on the Facebook profile page. Visitors to the librarian's Facebook profile will be able to jump directly to any of their published Guides."
3 daily active users

Facebook Librarian, "gives users a number of user-influenced links for finding common information normally found in libraries. More importantly, it allows users to automatically ask questions to real librarians".
5 daily active users.

It is interesting and telling to contrast these low levels of use to the high use of a social, interactive tool which allows groups of friends to interact (as opposed to libraries' linear search tools - tools that represent the hard work of research, which few people would want to do in their free time, when they would be on Facebook)...

Visual Bookshelf
"Millions of books added! Catalog your books and reading list * See what your Friends are Reading, Write Reviews, and Recommend Books * Meet new People who are Reading your Favorite Book!"
25,041 daily active users.

Earlier this year Steve Abram spoke about being where people need us. He used the example of a library like SLV producing a catalogue widget that specifically searches the library's genealogy collections. This widget could then be made available to genealogy societies to add to their websites, enabling them to link their users to to our resources - resources relevant to them. Conversely, I do not believe that university students log in to Facebook to study - so why would they want an academic library's widget on their profile page?

Of course there are other potential uses of Facebook by libraries. Deloitte is "extending it's intranet onto Facebook, using its "groups" functions to facilitate communication and collaboration around the company".

And some university librarians are trying to connect with class groups on social networking sites, promoting services and resources relevant to their course. I feel this would be more useful than developing broad based applications that try to service everyone - but equally, I wonder if mailing lists or rss could do just as good a job.

I feel that until social networking sites deal with the issue of separation of people's corporate and private identities (enabling users to have different versions of their profile pages for work and play), I cannot see the above uses being widely adopted in the work environment.

Ad of course I haven't even mentioned the diturbing implications of logging your entire existence on a privately owned website...