by According to the Chronicle of Higher Education (may require subscription), Facebook is planning on opening membership beyond university communities, much to the chagrin of the students. The academic library community has been debating whether we should have a presence in this area and it will be interesting to see if the decision to open membership changes opinions.
I’ve been interested in the place of the library in Facebook and have gone as far as setting up an account but not much more than that. All of this is particularly interesting as I’ve recently discovered a similar student site just for students at my institution, complete with chat and forums for discussions. While browsing the site as far as I could as a guest, I noticed a thread involving the library. I contacted the administrators to see if I could participate and, surprisingly to me, they said yes. I’ve had a lovely response to my presence, which is more than I was hoping for. I intend to check in occasionally to see if there are any library or research questions I can help with. Hopefully it will remain so positive.
