5.75: Endless Friending

In my Web meanderings of late, I find myself drawn to stories with headlines such as "Information Overload: What It Is and How You Can Avoid It" and "Coping With the Overload: Modern Technology Information Overload Causes Workers to Lose Valuable Hours of Productivity." I print them out. Someday I may even read one all the way through. Even if I never do, they reassure me that I may not be the only one experiencing Cyber-Clutter Syndrome. Reading a Web Junction article on Twitter, for example, I came upon Digg, Slashdot, Boing Boing, Lifehacker, Engadget.

And thus I come to my first reaction to social networking, pathetically like the cartoon Cathy: Ack! No more time! No more time! Ack!

In reading other Library 2.0 blogs (something I do regularly for sheer pleasure, plus oftentimes good and useful information), I am beginning to see clear divisions among the explorers, with some diving into blogdom and others finding their voice on Twitter or enjoying the creativity of Flickr. People seem to have varying comfort levels with different technologies, and ease of use doesn't seem to be as much of a factor as individual psychology.

And thus I come to my second reaction to social networking: Posting personal information online is far outside my comfort zone. I've been invited to join LinkedIn by several people with whom I had brief professional dealings, but never saw the point in it since I was their resource and had no desire to let them in on my job history. I do belong to an online group of former work colleagues; group messages are few but it serves as a bulletin board for events or news that affects us all, and it also compiles everyone's e-mail addresses into one handy spot. Several of my friends are on Facebook, but we correspond by snail or e-mail and another venue to bump into them on the Web seems unnecessary, particularly if it requires me to do that personal-info posting.

I wonder how many people read the privacy notices on these sites? Facebook has good privacy options to preclude them from, for example, using "information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services, Facebook Platform developers and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile." But people may not know that information is being gathered, and that they have control over its use. I found an organization, Truste.org, that certifies Web sites' privacy practices and offers a tutorial for parents -- pretty basic, but that may be what patrons need.

While Facebook etc. isn't my "Thing," the social-networking sites certainly can be both a resource and a marketing tool. Facebook has numerous groups devoted to libraries -- one has more than 7,500 members! -- and since they're open, even we outsiders can read the postings.

As for a library presence on the social-networking behemoths, I'm not altogether clear what the gain would be. For a business trying to drive customers to it or a Web site trying to drive readers, Facebook links make sense. But given the defined, more or less, population for a public library, who would be drawn by a Facebook presence? I would be interested in a follow-up report from the Pierce County Library on its MySpace experience.

Actually establishing a position on Facebook may not be too difficult, thanks to those who have boldly gone before, including the Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary: "Facebook Athenaeum provides libraries an easy to implement Facebook application . . . The application is easily customized for your institution and includes an integrated RSS reader, search tools, and a friend locator that allows Facebook users to record their location in the library so their friends can find them."

Tweets to Tigers

Eavesdropping on some Twitterers about a mouse problem shortly before I stumbled on a Make magazine (Volume 15) with a mousetrap made with pennies. You can view the video here. The magazine content isn't online but I do have RSS feeds from the blogs for Make and its companion publication Craft. Wonderfully bizarre and geeky. Same Make with the mousetrap has a story by an anonymous author on how to "acquire a bulletproof, anonymous online identity" using Tor software and Hushmail.

Might be fun to do a Maker Faire sort of thing for teens at the branch, perhaps with limits on things that explode.

Back to mouse problem. How about a nice tiger?

And, speaking of twittering, the new Peterson Field Guide to the Birds of North America comes with "more than 3 hours of downloadable video podcasts, including species accounts and birding tips." Good way to drive a sleeping cat on the desk chair crazy.

If I Were Twittering . . .

I'd just send the link to this Wired story on Internet entrepreneur Jay Walker's amazing library. It's straight out of "Myst." Alas, the public nature of following and being followed -- even the terms are kind of "stalkery," doncha think? -- is out of keeping with my anonymous self.

And if I were Twittering, and hadn't already run out of my 140 characters, I'd add links to a couple of recent Washington Post stories on library design: the first from the Oct. 2 Style section, about the D.C. Public Libraries' hiring of well-known architect David Adjaye to design two branches, the second from today's Home section on redesigning areas for teens in Montgomery County branches. The second is much better in the print edition than online, but in either what comes through is the library's inclusion of teen patrons in the planning process and the cleverness of the library in making use of the "House Calls" feature.

5.5. The Tweet By and By

A quarter century ago, the company I worked for had an internal message system. We could send messages to a group of people or an individual. Many of the messages were related to the job; many were snarky comments about the people sitting nearby. Overall, it was an exceedingly useful tool, saving the time of running up to the next floor to track someone down, or the nuisance of playing phone tag. Messages could be killed immediately after reading them, or printed out, or forwarded. This being pre-e-mail, it was a handy way to leave instructions or questions for someone on the next shift, or to tell the boss why we blew another deadline.

Twitter has similar uses, and could be an excellent in-house communications tool. However, as with many Web 2.0 technologies, the clutter threatens to overwhelm the useful. It also seems rather redundant: I can find out a book I requested is in by checking my account online; the robot also calls my house. Do I want to have that information e-mailed, Twittered and texted to me as well? How much extra staff time does it take to spread the same word on multiple platforms? However, Twitter might well be the alerting device of choice for younger patrons.

I may later set up an account, but for now I've got too many programs and passwords, and in any case am much more likely to be a follower than a, um, Twit.

To try out Twitter as an info-gathering device I visited its new election site. Looks like a good outlet for people who have an opinion and want to participate in the debate and it also provides a running look at the latest political gossip. I would think the campaigns would be monitoring this closely and possibly using Twitter to shoot down the misinformation that spreads so quickly.

I also plugged libraries into the search field but didn't hit on anything of use. Did stumble on this Tweet, which begs to be made into a poster:

"Don't coddle him. He needs to learn about libraries at some point. Better he hears it from us than on the streets."