Facebook or Farcebook?

There are those that love it, and those that loathe it.

And unfortunately of those that loathe it, there seem to be a large proportion that don't even know what Facebook is all about. Library Ninja is all about people having their own opinions – but those opinions should be based on fact…otherwise we may as well all live in America. [No offense intended to any American's out there, you did give the world Reese's Peanut Butter Cups so Library Ninja will forgive pretty much any indiscretion]

Nobody can deny that Facebook has changed the way millions of people connect. In the past "word of mouth" was how we learnt a lot about what our "contacts" (friends, family and colleagues) were doing. Nowadays, with the internet being more accessible to more people, "word of mouse" is fast becoming the new norm.

In that respect, sharing information with our contacts can be made easier with Facebook. For example, in the past we may have taken photos at an event, like a friend's birthday, and decided to email some of the photos as attachments to a selection of our contacts. Then another contact says, "Oh...I'd like to see those photos as well." The traditional method would have involved locating the previously sent email, or constructing a new one, and sending that out. With Facebook however, you can store the photos in an album and all your contacts can view them at their own leisure. Or, if the person it not one of your contacts on Facebook, you can send them the public URL to that particular image gallery. Easy-peasy-japanesey!

Similarly to keeping contacts up to date with our photos, Facebook also allows followers to stay abreast of what were doing by use of the comments feature. This is a handy aspect that also allows organisations, like libraries, to keep their interested followers up to date with any upcoming events or activities. The beauty of how it works is that library patrons may not necessarily check your library webpage everyday – and hence may miss out on matters of interest. But if they are following you on Facebook, it is very likely that they will view their Facebook feed a lot more frequently than the library website. Therefore the chance of missing out on pertinent information is greatly reduced.

P.S. For those curious to know if www.farcebook.com exists, it does - but it redirects to a lame competition page that should probably be avoided.