iHCPL Books, Readers and Beyond #55 Getting the Most Out of Facebook

Exercise 1. If you haven't already, sign up for a Facebook account.

I signed up during the original iHCPL, thinking that it would be a useful way to keep up with people at work and with other librarians that I’ve worked with before in ALA, in other libraries and in the other TLA (the Tennessee Library Association). It has been useful for that, but it’s also become a way to keep up with friends and family around the country. I’ve often read that electronic media flattens hierarchies. This was a phenomena that started in the pre-internet age of history with e-mail and chat groups. Now, over the past year, I’ve also learned that social networking dissolves the boundaries between work, home, church, and the people I know in each of these settings.

I was delighted to read iStar’s post that Facebook was back as a subject of study, because I find it a frustratingly difficult site to navigate. I often have a devil of a time trying to figure out how the @#$%^ thing works.

It’s not that I dislike the site; I use it often, and I enjoy staying in touch with my friends a lot easier than keeping up with multiple e-mail correspondence or with a listserv (I know at this point some readers may be thinking, “Gasp, how last millennium can he get?”). So while I enjoy Facebook, I fear I may be perpetually stuck in clueless noob status.

Exercise 2. Search for people you may know and add a friend or two.

I used People You May Know to add another two people from work.

Exercise 3. Add an application from one of the above suggestions or search using Find More - you can always delete it. Play around with the application for at least 5-10 minutes.

From games I added MouseHunt because it was the first one that popped up. I tooted the horn three times and caught two mice. I bought 4 pieces of cheddar. After the requisite ten minutes of play I deleted the application.

Exercise 4. Write a post to your blog about your experience.

The 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know post was helpful, but not as helpful as I'd hoped it might be. I sorted Friends into Work, Church, and Family groups, but still found the privacy choices to be overly broad and not very useful. But I did discover how to delete the Gifts application, and I finally found where the networks were hidden and was able to join the HCPL one. Previously I had searched in vain in groups, oblivious to the fact that networks and groups are completely different concepts in Facebook.