More unthinging with faceless Facebook

I could not bring myself to sign into Facebook even after looking over the potential benefits. From a professional point of view, I am simply not happy to have both my private life and my 'public' life mixed up. In all honesty there is nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to my private life. I think the bifurcation our lives into work/leisure is a great shame. It splits our personalities and destroys the sense of vocation in the conduct of our lives. We essentially 'buy' leisure so we can live our 'real' life at home.

However, I am unsure if the merging of professional/social life through social networking is the solution to this issue. Once more I find there is the danger of staring intently at our 'Cyber' image, without really living in the world. Of being obsessed with online 'friends' and in fact becoming isolated, atomistic and unsocial in the world of social networking. I am all for being personal, communitarian and vocational in our professional lives. For our work to reflect a real sense of our person, of our being true artists (or artisans). Nevertheless, I do not wish to become self-obsessed and dwell in the unholy trinity of me, myself and I.

But what apart from this? Do I condemn social networking and all it can do for libraries? I don't think so. Though the dangers may be latent, yet the benefits seem clear. The library is able to publicise itself in a way that it could never have done in the pre-Web 2.0 era. Information about the library can be delivered to patrons where they are at. I would imagine that nearly all the students would have a Facebook account so to be able to 'bring the library to them' is very powerful. I was amazed that over 2000 people had registered their approval of the library Facebook page.

I am glad that I took the time to look at Facebook. I remain a critic but I understand the benefits and the good it does in peoples lives.