The Social Media Opportunity and Libraries

I like this list since it inspires me to think about ways to use social media to help libraries.
It’s sadly laughable that there are those who think that e-books will kill libraries – we’ve always been about reading and survived the transition from scrolls to books and will adapt to this change as well.
It’s also just shallow thinking that an information and knowledge based economy wouldn’t require information professionals with deep understanding of metadata and information architecture and research behaviours. Doesn’t the financial sector require pros like certified analysts, MBAs and CPAs?
It’s frightening that there are those who want ONLY search results from Google/Bing that are primarily influenced by SEO, SMO, content spammers, and special interests like commercial entities, advertisers, politicians, racists, etc. and not by quality or real need. We’re not consumer search’s customer, we’re their product served up to those who pay.
The reality is that we need to represent ourselves better, much better.

10 Historical Events Affected by Social Media
via Mashable! by Christine Erickson on 12/4/11

http://mashable.com/2011/12/04/social-media-historical-events/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29#366991-Presidential-Election-2008

1. 2008 Presidential election
2. Hudson River Water Landing
3. Iran Election
4. Earthquake in Haiti
5. Chilean Miner Rescue
6. Revolt in Egypt
7. 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami
8. Osama bin Laden’s death
9. Occupy Wall Street
10. 911

I’d add the changes in Tunisia, Libya, Syria, etc. to the mix too.

Now CILIP’s #savelibraries tweets were awesome too. And Old Spice Guy and Libraries on YouTube – excellent. More . . . please.

Stephen