Networkin’ it!

Roselle Public Library has a network on Ning.com, a site where people and organizations can create their own social networks.

Roselle Public Library’s website does not advertise The RPL Network on ning.com anywhere on their main page. The only page the network is mentioned is on a “What’s New” post from October 17, 2007. The RPL Network is meant to be used by patrons, staff, and supporters, but I’m not sure how anyone is supposed to know about it. The network comes up in the top ten results from a Google search, but it should be more easily accessed through the library’s official website.

Despite the lack of online marketing, the network has 46 members and very lively discussion boards. Ning.com was a good choice for Roselle Public Library, if they were interested in creating a more adult online presence. Facebook seems to be popular with adults, but there are a lot of paranoid privacy questions surrounding that social network in particular. Ning.com may appeal to a more conservative group of people who do not want to be on the same social network as their children.

Your fans are waiting, NYPL

The New York Public Library has a fan-created network on Ning.com, as well as a fanpage on Facebook. The Ning network only has 13 members, but the Facebook group has 104.

These are not official pages started by NYPL staff. There are no links on NYPL’s homepage to any of these websites. Bob Kosovsky, a curator for Rare Books and Manuscripts at the library, maintains a blog on the NYPL website, where he suggests that autograph albums were the original Facebook, but that’s about as close as the NYPL website gets to Facebook, officially.

Many library profiles I looked at on Facebook and Myspace were created and maintained by library fans. As is the case with the Vancouver Public Library, most of the libraries seemed to be unaware of their unofficial online presence. NYPL has over 100 fans, willing to link their profiles to the library’s, but the cost of paying a librarian to maintain the profile is perhaps beyond the benefit of 100 additional links to the library’s website.

As long as the fan pages stay friendly (not the case with VPL), there seems to be no real harm. And, hey, maybe autograph albums will take off again in some sort of grassroots New York luddite revolution. Keep reaching for those stars, NYPL!