Facebook

I was 'discovered' by a friend, who - and this is something I'm still learning about - both recommended me to others - who pinged me, wanting to be 'friends' - and made recommendations to me, whereby I ping them with a request to be thier 'friend'. Word-of-mouth is an enormous and essential facet of the social-media paradigm, it allows a site to spread much quicker and with greater ease than if it were up to only one individual, who is limited by both time, and their contacts list.

By being allowed, enables one to access their page and any information and postings that are on it. You can join in conversations, start conversations, make arrangements for and be informed about real events. It allows direct, if informal, feedback, enabling a library to bounce ideas and gauge responses in a way that is less onerous for the public to comment/respond - no lengthy, complicated questionnaire to mull over.

Following several of my 'friends' - I feel the need to parenthesise this, why? because the experience is tinged with the irony that though they are, as some have hundreds and thousands, the term is also one that is, hmmm, generous - it is obvious that this is a mechanism that is very attractive for users, and so therefore also for a library in reaching them; take your goods to the market. Because it is so easy for 'Friends' to post a comment, there is a possibility that such commentary is unconsidered, and so if the library is formulating a plan of action - a concert or exhibition for example - then though good for a superficial measure of support or otherwise, it shouldn't be the ONLY research undertaken.

The actual platform allows groups to be created, controls deployed to limit access to those that you want to have it, and for the site to host multiple forms of information - photos, links, general postings &c. Really made for a library to reach out. Even groups within groups - so having accessed the general library Facebook page, there could be more specific subject oriented groups - perhaps targeting a particular HSC topic, or reading group.