Gen X, social media, and libraries

It's interesting being a Gen-Xer and living abroad in 2009. Although I've been using Facebook for about two and a half years professionally, my friends from 5, 10, and even 15 years ago are starting to create accounts and get online in droves. In the past two days, I've reconnected with two friends from my undergraduate days, a friend from the days of my grad work in French, and a librarian that I know through NMRT committee work (and whom I met in person ONCE at a conference five years ago).

Before my recent travels to France, I connected with friends and acquaintances that I haven't seen in years through Facebook and through TripIt's application in LinkedIn. All of these French contacts found me initially.

None of these new online connections would have been possible a year ago simply because Gen Xers and the French weren't yet using social media for networking this way. If I had been abroad in 2007-2008, there wouldn't be this wealth of opportunity to reconnect with friends and colleagues, and to establish contact almost instantly with newfound “connections” like one of the librarians at ENSSIB, with whom I am now “friends” on Facebook after my presentation.

The presentation that I gave at ENSSIB on March 25, 2009 was about social networks and the information literacies that university librarians should possess http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~moulaiso/MoulaisonENSSIB2009 .pdf. These Social Networking Literacies (SNL) will allow the creation of new and innovative library services that capitalize on social media. I was delighted that Terry Weech of UIUC's GSLIS made time at the end of his presentation on libraries and networking to allow me to share ideas about these new competencies with ENSSIB students, librarians, and instructors.

If my own overwhelming list of “friends” on Facebook and LinkedIn are any indication, the time really has come for librarians to capitalize on online social networks. Thanks to Joe Murphy (Yale Science Library and Library Journal “Mover and Shaker”) for being first author on our original presentation as presented at ACRL in mid-March 2009 in Seattle.

Social Networking Literacy Competencies for Librarians

View more presentations from Joe Murphy.

I've gotten nothing but great feedback from librarians who attended his very inspired presentation. And somehow, on SlideShare, it's gotten 4 "favorites"!