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You should! :) She's a librarian and advocate who's been writing and blogging about the social effects of technology for years. I've been reading her blog librarian.net since 1998. This link is to one her recent talks about the digital divide...its history and what it means now.

And she's got a new book out - http://www.amazon.com/Without-Net-Librarians-Bridging-Digital/dp/1598844539/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1307356401&sr=8-3

Hmmm...Interesting thought. With the popularity of twitter and facebook, perhaps this is a reality.

I studied mass communication in college and several of my classmates are now "Community Managers" at nonprofits, consulting firms and corporations alike. Essentially they are the social media marketers, but have roles that also include public relations and community building. I think considering our own MLIS program's recent (last year?) addition of a social media concentration, KeithK's comment on the blog entry comes to life: "There are several important concepts to consider in the participatory culture of social media that extend far beyond marketing. The potential for community engagement, for developing an active learning community through the use of social media is one good reason. Understanding the dynamics of social capital with respect to creating community is another. These are things that need to be analyzed through research and reflection, not just use." Social media as a source to recontextualize our information resources through collaboration, folksonomies and other community-building and -based activities is pretty exciting. I don't know that a social media librarian is specifically needed, but it is something that could be incorporated into an instructional or educational technology librarian's role in academia.

You know, our library has a Facebook account, but I don't think we ever really do anything with it. There's a lot of potential there, as this article points out.

Maybe not directly related to SI, but it is worth questioning how technology is changing the role of libraries through a different lens than is normal for SCILS. Should librarians encourage social media for children (say, under 14?)... alternatively, how is social media forcibly reshaping libraries?

I always liked this article when I was linked to it some time ago. The author succinctly describes why so many people get very excited about social media but end up doing some very not smart things with that technology. This particular author is a little snarky but I think he gets to the point about how we need to present ourselves on the Internet, rather than just putting ourselves out there "as is."

I make it my personal obsession to erase as much of my online presence as possible.

@Daniel, for any reason in particular?

I am a big pop music/culture nut. Always have been...probably always will be. So, when I really started thinking about social media and all its uses, I began to wonder...who out there uses social media to it's fullest potential. The answer was obvious. Lady Gaga! When I did a quick search on Lady Gaga and social media, I got a lot of hits. But I wasn't surprised. She is the master when it comes to sites like Facebook and Twitter. Yes, she is out there wearing meat dresses and making fun songs, but it's her presence on social networking sites that I feel has really catapulted her to super stardom. What do you all think?

hmm. is it gaga or her p/r team creating the image? Is her voice really hers? How do we know?

I am sure it is more her "team" then her herself. But, still...it's rather impressive.

My favorite cranky librarian casts a skeptical eye towards a social media survey, and (as always) Library 2.0 - worth reading the blog and the survey it talks about/links to.

Well, someone is trying for the "librarians as info people" thing, let's see how it goes.

"The state librarian of Kansas, with the backing of state attorney general's office, is planning to terminate the Kansas Digital Library Consortium's contract with ebook vendor OverDrive and is asserting the bold argument that the consortium has purchased, not licensed, its ebook content from OverDrive and, therefore, has the right to transfer the content to a new service provider."

This site is just a little blurb itself, but it links to a number of other resources for presentations that I think may be of interest to the class, let me know what you think!

One aspect of the digital divide includes urban-rural connectivity disparity. Jeanine mentions Jessamyn West earlier in diigo, and I thought this woman required at least one more bookmark here (I'm a huge fan of her work, writing, presentations.)! The link is to the audio recording of Jessamyn's facilitation of the "Offline America" session at last year's SXSW (South by Southwest) conference. You can get the lecture notes, slides and more here: http://librarian.net/talks/sxsw2011/.

The ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee and the IFC Privacy Subcommittee developed the "Resolution to Protect Library User Confidentiality in Self-Service Hold Practices" after receiving requests from librarians and library users to examine the issue of reader privacy and self-service holds (June 28, 2011).