Award for the most pervasive web 2.0 tool?

Facebook, or personal profile sites, I think, for cropping up all over the place, including this from today’s Evening Standard about Anne Darwin (who’s husband has surfaced again after 5 years shortly after she moved to Panama) which caught my eye.

“Mrs Darwin’s entry on Facebook was removed last night - it had included a photograph of her with two cats - and had details posted by members of her immediate family. To remove a posting requires the email address and secret password”
Mendick, Robert & Lefley, Jack. The Evening Standard, 4th December 2007, p.5.

It’s not the first time I have seen Facebook quoted as a source in newspaper article, but it highlights the vulnerability of adding personal information to social networking sites - not to mention someone’s very quick thinking to remove the profile.

Podcast - Building the Academic Library 2.0

Draft

Meredith Farkas
Building the Academic Library 2.0

This podcast, taken from the Building the Academic Library 2.0 conference which took place recently at the University of California, Berkeley, covers the conference opening and keynote speech by Meredith Farkas. Meredith is probably best know for creating the online course 5 weeks to a social library which ran earlier this year. I haven’t finished the podcast yet, (it is over 1 hour long) but so far she has provided some interesting examples of how libraries are reaching out to their customers:

A US college ran a survey and found that students first port of call when they got a new essay title was to ring their parents for help. In response, the library now runs breakfast orientation sessions for parents, to make sure they are aware of all the resources available to their children.

A US librarian is using her Facebook profile to interact directly with students, through her profile they can make requests for new book purchases. She then alerts them via Facebook when the books are available in the library.

I must go back to this later.

To start things off

Thank you for looking at the blog - as I said in my e-mail - WiFi hotspots permitting I will be sending postings during the conference. (I have just joined the Facebook group for the conference and apparently there will be WiFi hotspots in all the conference rooms so it should be OK). It looks like the Facebook group could provide some useful pre-conference information.

There will be an official blog (and many unofficial blogs) for the conference plus photographs will be available via Flickr. I will add links to these on the blog homepage in due course.