Week #8 Post #18

I took a look around several of the social networking sites. MySpace is visually active, commercialized and youth-orientated. Although FaceBook began as a social networking site for college students, it now states on an opening page that "everyone can use facebook.com". I enjoyed the photos of the animals on dogster.com and catster.com -- particularly the "cat of the week" section on catster. Ratemyspace, an HGTV sponsored site is great for those seeking an overview of the current popular trends in decoration. When I visited the site, it was a little bit more than two weeks out from the Christmas holidays. Thus photos and comments on various home exteriors and interiors that were decorated for the holidays were abundant. I also enjoyed a walk through threadless.com and the various designers stating their thoughts about their clothing designs. It had that final studio presentation feel to it -- sort of edgy, more experimental in a way.

As a professional I understand the social networking concept and the positive side of the argument for people being able to communicate with each other across the city or around the world. Unfortunately not everyone or everything presents us with this ideal. For us in the library these sites present almost a wild frontier quality. We have customers complaining because they can't access their particular social networking site at given times (usually too busy, or initially blocked by our filters). We have other customers objecting to what is displayed on their or another customer's computer monitor (from a social networking site) as being pornographic in content. We read in our professional literature that occasionally governing bodies of libraries in various parts of the country have voted to block the social networking sites from the publicly funded computers. We give classes on Internet security, have various handouts for our customers, and have an area on our website which discusses Internet security.