Social Media: The Value for Librarians

摘要

SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS CAN HELP INFORMATION PROFESSIONALS TAP THE POWER OF SLA'S MEMBER NETWORKAND LEARN FROM PEERS ACROSS THE GLOBE. Information professionals liave always been pioneers in using technology to collect, manage and disseminate information. Just think about the online catalog or online databases, where information professionals were pushing the envelope of what was available to support our mission. Social media (the term "Web 2.0" is also used) are new additions to our tool set. Definitions vary, but they're primarily Internet-based tools for sharing ideas and information. The information can take the form of words, pictures, video, audio, or any combination of these. A recent study (Rogers 2009) showed that more than 90 percent of surveyed librarians felt that social media were important for marketing libraries and their services. One respondent even stated, "Important doesn't really do it justice. Any library that is not using Web 2.0 technology is not only hurting itself, but it is also hurting the future of all libraries."