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July 11, 2007
30 million users on Facebook
Just yesterday, Facebook crossed the 30 million users mark. The growth rate has been tremendous with the number of active users doubling since the beginning of this year. See chart below:
Clearly, this rate of growth is not sustainable. But it is a useful illustration of the web using public's affinity for social networks and social media. Here's another one that provides an age-based picture. And yet another one that depicts massive usage, but limited content creation. And one more from the Pew Internet and American Life Project that shows just what Facebook users do on Facebook.
How does this relate to libraries? Is there anything libraries can do to make resources more interactive and "social"? Perhaps..... For starters, try out Reeves Library's highly experimental (AKA "beta") "Local Reviews" function embedded in the library catalog. Do a search, click on the "Amazon Added Content" link, and then the "Local Reviews" tab (Note: not all items have the "Added Content" link). Fun. Easy.
Here's a direct link to a user added review for a book about "new media"
Posted by AnthonyMcMullen at July 11, 2007 3:52 PM
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Comments
I'm intersted... if we ask our students to write such local reviews, how long would the reviews stick around? Until the end of the beta test?
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz 
at July 12, 2007 8:41 AM
I see the "local reviews" functionality as something that exists in perpetual beta. It seems to be stable, but I can make no guarantees... All of the user added reviews (all 18 of them) are stored in a databse outside of the Voyager library catalog environment -- I have no intention of deleting these reviews / comments and am hopeful that the numbers grow over time. To be useful, I think there needs to be a critical mass of user added content. But, I have no idea what that critical mass might be -- more than 18 for certain.
Posted by: Tony at July 13, 2007 1:34 PM
Since the Seminar in Thinking and Writing classes cover pretty much the same content from year to year, I can see SHU's holidings of those particular areas being pretty well covered after a few semesters. Perhaps as part of an early pre-writing exercise, students are required to write a few annotations. (I'll mention it to Laura.)
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at July 14, 2007 10:47 AM