Jonya Pacey, Help Desk Manager

This is the kind of experiment that can't be easily undone. So it's more like a change or a decision, I guess.

It involves FaceBook and something I heard at MLA. One of the sessions, about 23 Things on a Stick, contained a presentation by a Ramsey County librarian who joined FaceBook with six of her coworkers at other branches, as they could use this as a tool to communicate. The premise is to both build community and to tap into each other's knowledge when doing reference work and similar library tasks. Shortly after the presenter created her account, her family found and friended her - all 30 of them.

I found that a great story. I'm already a member of the MLA group on FaceBook, and used that to start friending the professional people I already know. I am exploring the friends' lists of library-involved people I already have friended, looking for those connections in the network. I had to think first about mixing my professional life with the rest of what I do, including the times I get whiney about working out, and decided that just about everything I do on FaceBook is mirrored on some other Web 2.0 venue. Anyone in the library community could have found my casual adventures in living via my blogs or my LiveJournal acccounts, or googled me, or looked for me on flick'r. And soon -  LibraryThing.

During these few days, however, it has changed my update postings. Already, I am more thoughtful as to what I tell people; I don't know how long that will last but I believe I will never be unaware of the entirety of my audience. But I've always been aware of the real people on the other side of the screen. The experiment comes from fully embracing the opportunity to network and build community - that's the advertising, isn't it? That my network intermingles with other people's networks and as snippets of information are shared, usefulness happens. People find jobs, find new friends, find answers.

The next step is to move the intellectual nature of my network to face-to-face meetings, to tap into web-based friendliness and support in real time. But maybe that is organic and impossible to predict. I will find out. See you online!

Crossposted to my personal blogs.