Social Networking and School Library Media Centers

The concept of social networking involves links between people and how they are interrelated. Social networking websites allow people to stay connected with friends and family as well as create new relationships as new links are created. Shared interests can be one way people become connected.

Some sites are very general in their members, while others are specific to one type of person. For example, there are social networking sites that are geared specifically for teachers. These sites allow teachers to share ideas and thoughts. Facebook is a social networking site that is more informal in its use. LinkedIn is geared more toward the business world as people use it to find jobs, post jobs and find other business related connections.

One great feature of social networking sites is that users can share pictures, images and videos on these sites with friends and family. But, the users must be aware that because of the links, these images may travel further than they think.

Privacy and security are major issues with social networking sites. How much information the user wants to be viewed can be controlled using different levels of privacy and different modes of communication within the site.

Users must be very wary when using these online resources. There are many different opportunities for criminal activities to take place. Online predators, identity theft, and cyber-bullying are just a few. As a fifth grade teacher, I have often heard students talking about conversations that they had or heard about which occurred on Facebook. I can see how easy it would be for a child to become a victim to any of these crimes.

Children today are so very technology minded. A great deal of their social communication happens using social networking sites. We have the responsibility as educators to help children become effective and wise users of this type of medium. We should do what we can to make it fun and safe.

Libraries can use these sites for promotion purposes. Schools can use these sites for instruction and collaboration. School libraries can combine these uses. I work in Cobb County School District where these sites are filtered. But, the school that I work at used the social networking component of the online catalog Destiny to allow students to share book reviews. Students could log on and share their opinion of books they were reading. Many students utilized this site for its exact purpose, but there were some problems with students making inappropriate comments and logging into each other’s pages. These problems were quickly handled by the media specialist because it was monitored very strictly. This simply illustrates the fact that if social networking sites are going to be used in the school setting, there must be diligence in maintaining the site and monitoring the content.