My name is Liz and I am in the Master’s of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program at the University of British Columbia’s School of Library, Archival and Information Science (started the program in January 2014). I am writing this blog as part of an assignment for LIBR 559M: Social Media for Information Professionals.
I use a variety of social media in my personal life each day. I have had personal blogs in the past but have ended up deleting them all at one point or another. I use Goodreads to track and share all of the books that I read. I also use Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. I know that Pinterest has its critics, but I find it quite useful for organizing things like recipes, things that I like about particular cities, and even historic photos. 99% of the time spent on Facebook seems like a waste (or worse)—but I know that if I didn’t have an account I’d also miss out on a lot of information and updates from friends and organizations. I “follow” a lot of organizations including libraries.
I have a twitter account that I have tried using intermittently but I have never really enjoyed using twitter. For jobs past and present (including for a museum and libraries) I’ve used the following social media platforms: blogs, facebook, twitter, and flickr. I actually really enjoy using social media for organizations/professionally, much more than using it personally.
In my personal life I use Feedly to keep track of various blogs that I follow, including a variety of library blogs and library job sites. For this class I plan to set up a hootsuite account to keep track of blog postings. I’ve heard hootsuite mentioned a lot and it seems like a good thing to know how to use.
I find Twitter is helpful for me in my work as a medical librarian. I get to meet people, librarians and doctors via Twitter. I should take a look at Feedly again. I tried it when Google took away Google Reader (one of its failed social tools). Dean
Dean:
Feedly is pretty good. I started using it when Google Reader disappeared. Still don’t understand why they did that.
Hey Liz! Hope you are doing well.
I enjoyed reading your first post. I like Pinterest as well; although, I mostly just browse through the content without really using much of the functions available like “pinning.”
As for Facebook making people sad, here is an interesting rebuttal article: http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2014/05/will-facebook-make-you-sad-depends-how-you-use-it
I can definitely relate to the idea of passive and active Facebook use. Personally, I find it can definitely be a generally positive experience if I manage my time properly by just logging on for short snippets.
Hey Mark-
Thanks for your comments. I am glad that there is at least one other person in this class who sees some redeeming value in Pinterest. I have found the mapping capabilities useful for planning trips, too (not sure if you’ve tried that).
I’ll check out the article about Facebook — Thanks!