Social Media with Sumanjit

Diigo is a social bookmarking website similar to Delicious. I have been evaluating Diigo as a Library Subject Guide based on the Swiss Army Librarian’s blog post Library Subject Guides Using Diigo.

Users can import their Delicious bookmarks into Diigo and create a linkroll to display their bookmarks on their website or blog. I am using this blog post as a way to experiment with Diigo’s linkrolls to create a Health Subject Guide.

One of the questions that we were asked to reflect on from our first module was – What makes a social tool useful? – Is it to be connected? to stay current? to build a social network? to engage in learning?

After learning from six social media modules my answer would be YES to all of these.

A social media tool is useful when it allows users to connect with others and the world. Building a network and creating interconnected links with others is the basis of social media. A two way interaction is needed. This connection allows participants to engage in learning. They can learn from each other to build on their previous knowledge. This learning process can allow for collaboration to occur and thus creating something new.

A social tool is useful when it allows users to stay current. In this day in age information is always changing. It is important to always keep on track of new technologies and developments because news gets old quickly. If a tool allows currency then it is successful.

A social tool is useful when it fulfills a users needs. This means that users should be able to relate, use and apply the tool to their lives. The tool should make life easier for the user or fill some purpose compared to adding to the information overload already flooding people’s lives. If a user can recognize the affordances of a social tool and know how to apply them then the tool’s usefulness is accomplished. What is the point of a tool that is not useful?

A social tool is useful when many people use it. The tool’s usefulness increases when multiple people use it. This creates the network of people needed to participate and grow the body of knowledge shared on the social tool’s platform. This relates back to the tool being useful if it has the capacity to build a network. A tool is only useful when we make it useful and this occurs when the tool allows learning.

As a collaborative project for this week’s Create module our class has put together a list of  the “Top 100 Ways Librarians Use Social Media.”

The list has great examples of social media usage. It highlights how professionals in our field are taking advantage of social media tools to promote their libraries and interacting with patrons.

Take a look and see what social media has created!

After reading the affordances/contraints of different social media tools posted by my class mates I was sold on creating an account in Twitter and Delicious for the discovery exercise. I find time management an issue when devoting time to social media tools, such as microblogging or social networking, but I am happy to try these tools for this class and hopefully keep up after too. I have an extensive “favorites” collection in Firefox and in my Zotero account so did not see the value of Delicious until now. Also, if my Firefox ever crashes again then I can have my websites in the cloud so that I won’t lose them or can access them from anywhere.

I already have an account in LibraryThing and GoodReads. I use LibraryThing to catalog my personal books and to get recommendations for leisure reading. I just signed up with GoodReads as a way to network with others and explore the world of reading at large. This account is still in the starter stage.

I also use Google Docs and PB Works (wiki) for school and personal activities. I created a Slideshare account, but have to admit that I never took it beyond the starter stage. Maybe now that I am managing my social  media accounts I should get on that too. Even though I don’t manage my account as I would like to I still use Slideshare to access others work.

Flickr is my favorite choice for finding great images. I also use Picaboo to create online photo albums that I can share with others. This is definitely a leisure activity. I’ve seen how libraries use Flickr to post images, but if a more extensive photo project was required then Picaboo is the way to go.

I manage my RSS feeds using Bloglines. I quite enjoy the organizational aspects of this RSS aggregator so that I can access everything in one location. I’m actually very thankful for this Discovery Exercise because it allowed me to access my accounts and analyze the value of them. Of course I am also trying new ones like Twitter and Delicious!

Image retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/silvertje/3582297307/ and is licensed under the creative commons by Anne Helmond’s photostream.

As I worked through module 1 and explored the concept of affordances of different social media tools, it really got me thinking about the positives and negatives of these tools. In the discussions forum my classmates and I thought about these affordances and constraints as they apply to social media applications, such as Google Docs, Zotero, RSS, instant messaging, wikis, Twitter, second life etc as the list continues.

Whenever I first come across a new social media tool of interest to me I always get excited and only focus on its affordances. However, we should keep in mind that the affordances of a tool always come along with its constraints. More than a few months ago I discovered StumbleUpon as I was randomly searching the web. StumbleUpon is a social  media tool that allows its user community to find and rate websites, videos, images etc based on recommendation and social networking principles.

At first I was excited to try this out and thought how I could use this tool in a library to create links for specific subject topics for my patrons or use this tool for social bookmarking (I’m also big on advertising for things so that “the word gets out” ). After further examining the affordances, my list of constraints grew greater. I realized that many of the suggestions that are given for your subject choices are not current. This is especially important in a library setting or for professional development as stale articles are outdated quickly.

At the time I glazed over the suitability of the tool. However, the  key is that we consider if the affordances of a tool will be suitable for our library and our patronage. If we can not connect both then our tool will be unsuccessful for fulfilling user needs. Sometimes we get overwhelmed with the bells and whistles of a tool and can not think beyond the immediate. The bigger picture is more important in the case of libraries because this picture is of our users.

Learn more about StumbleUpon from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stumble_upon