MySpace Your Space, Our Space
14
MySpace, Your Space, Our Space : The Library’s Role in Educating the Public Presented by: Lisa Lindsay, YA Librarian Rachel Wilson, Teen Council President
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The Public Library's Role in Eductating Patrons -- what more can we do?
Transcript of MySpace Your Space, Our Space
MySpace, Your Space, Our Space : The Library’s Role in
Educating the Public
Presented by:
Lisa Lindsay, YA Librarian
Rachel Wilson, Teen Council President
Today we will cover
• General information about MySpace.
• An example of a large-scale project used to promote public dialog about MySpace.
• General information about social networking websites.
• Specific ways that individuals can help raise awareness among all ages about social networking.
MySpace• 100 million users
worldwide
• Broadest appeal across age ranges
• #1 site where people spent time on the Internet
• Allows for lots of customization of pages including – background, music, fonts, and page layout.
What is the draw?• MySpace is a way to
show who you are and what you care about.
• MySpace is a way to find out about less-known musicians.
• Opportunity to have a place where you feel like you belong (not always the case at school or at home).
• The video that the Sunnyside Teen Council created explains more why teens specifically are so drawn to MySpace.
MySpace Generation: A Teen Documentary• The Sunnyside Teen Council did a project to educate
the public on the role MySpace plays in teens lives.
• Funds came from California Council for the Humanities “How I See it Campaign”.
• Instructions were to document an aspect of youth culture that we wanted adults to understand better.
• After researching our topic and preparing the documentary we presented the film at a public event that included a panel discussion afterwards.
• The media response was amazingly positive.
• Beyond Youtube, the movie can also be checked-out from the library: Valleycat record.
Social Networking• A website where the
primary focus is connecting with other people.
• MySpace is the most popular but the map shows that there are many others out there.
• Usually integrates msgs, chat/IM, blogging and data sharing.
• Please note, social networking sites are being used to drive traffic to our website! (example WDWD teen council)
FACT: Every day, people come to the library to use our computers to access social networking sites.
FACT: A library should be a place where people can find useful and relevant information.
FACT: We are the most logical people to help our patrons make their way in the ever changing world that technology has created.
If not us, who? MySpace will soon be replaced by the next fad, but social networking of some sort will be a part of our library experience from now on -- it draws patrons in the doors and it creates opportunity for outreach as well.
What does social networking have to do
with the library?
What can we do?
• Educate ourselves as much as possible!
• Recommend resources (books and web), particularly to parents when they express concerns.
• Add Web 2.0-related classes to our current offerings & include online safety components in all computer classes.
Sample Web 2.0-related class: “MySpace for Moms and Dads” • Taught two times at Sunnyside so far.
• Turn-out has included target audience (parents of teens who use MySpace) as well as adults interested in developing their own MySpace page (indicating the need for a “MySpace How-to” type class)
• Course content found here: http://www.slideshare.net/TRMite/
What can we do? continued
• Other ideas?
• Further discussion/questions
Remember…• Computer skills you have gain from
your personal interests can be used when helping the public.
• If you are creating any computer class content, you don’t have to start from scratch! Contact your colleagues here in
Fresno to build off of work they have already done.
Again, Slideshare.net is also a great place to start.
Creative Commons LicenseCreated October 2007 by Lisa Lindsay, MLIS of
Fresno County Public Library.
Slide template and some content modified from a MySpace course by Diana Sachs-Silveira of Tampa Bay Library Consortium.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
