The Vancouver Public Library has a pretty bunk online presence. A search on Facebook retrieves only a “VPL Facebookers” page for staff to communicate with each other. VPL has a page on Myspace, but it has not been updated since last September, which is odd in itself considering the strike. The page provides a link to the VPL website, but I’m not totally convinced the profile wasn’t started without the library’s permission. Because anyone can create a profile representing any business or organization, Myspace library pages can be questionable if they do not link directly to an official homepage that links back to them.
The same goes for the Mount Pleasant Branch profile on the VPL profile’s friend list. Perhaps “pay equity doesn’t exist here” is not an official mission statement of the branch. Just sayin’.
A Google search for the word “Myspace” on the library’s website returns three results, none of which announce the library’s presence on the social networking site. Board members for VPL are unlikely to become aware of their unofficial Myspace presence any time soon. One of the search results from Google is a transcript of some board minutes from 2006 (scroll down to #10), where Myspace is referred to as a “chat service.” Yikes.
The VPL profile and Mount Pleasant Branch profile have 114 and 229 friends, respectively. Their friends are mostly Vancouver citizens and other libraries. It’s pretty bad publicity for VPL, not only because of the statements on the Mount Pleasant Branch profile, but because of the lack of maintenance on the VPL profile. If the Vancouver Public Library had an official Myspace profile, they could provide a more credible portal from Myspace to the VPL homepage.
Or, maybe they are changing their mission statement and these pages are real. Who knows? I’m guessing VPL doesn’t.
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