MLA CE: Social Networking

MLA can use social networking to connect members who are interested in different subject areas or for members who work for different types of health sciences libraries.

At this point, I don't see a reason to have a Facebook or Myspace page for my library.

Yes, I think there are privacy issues involved with these pages.

I find FaceBook and MySpace to be slow, cumbersome and a time waster. For me, personally, they don't have much use.

MLA CE Week 2 - Wikis

A blog is basically one person sending information out to others. A wiki is a collaboration by many people - they can update and edit the information.

A blog would be better suited for information that will not change.

A wiki would be great for staff communication because everyone could update and add to group projects, etc.

MLA CE Week 1 - Blogs and RSS

RSS feeds could be used to communicate items to the staff. With evening and weekend employees, it's not always easy to have a staff meeting with everyone. A Library blog with an RSS feed would allow an easy way for announcements to the staff. Of course, having them subscribe to a reader and login regularly would have to be a requirement.

Feeds could also be used to promote information about the Library to the campus once the campus was educated about blogs, readers and feeds.

Patrons could use feeds in PubMed. I remember the SDI alert searches used years ago. The PubMed search feed can replace this. Librarians can promote this to their faculty and researchers. It's a service they could provide if the physicians don't want to mess with it themselves or the librarians could make friends by showing the physicians how to create the feeds themselves.