Some More On Social Networking

I spent a lot of this weekend immersed in Hogwarts, or recovering from staying up until the wee hours of the morning reading. And, even in this most traditional (and geektacular) form of reading (involving, you know, a book), social software was pretty much everywhere.

Some examples:

• Days before, a kind and clever relative of mine sent me an email instructing on how to download a leaked pdf of the book, should I so desire. I, of course, am virtuous and resisted such a pernicious temptation. I did, however, spend some time cruising livejournal for spoilers (all lies!) with a wary hand over my eyes.
• After I finished the book, my roommate and I typed frantically over msn (to avoid shrieking something aloud and spoiling it for her younger sister who was visiting us).
• Photos of our great adventure were posted on Facebook, tagged and shared with amusing captions.
• I spent a couple of hours yesterday searching for reviews/ reactions on technorati.

I should also note that I can no longer feel any lingering resentment about Facebook (see my previous post on Facebook here) because I have my very own fanclub. Since this is, like, the highlight of my life, I must conclude that Facebook is good for something. *sigh*

I have been thinking about the best practices for libraries and social software and will post something longer about this later in the week. While I was thinking about this, I went to my hometown library's homepage this morning, and it was a little disconcerting. There is no RSS feed, no virtual reference, and not even a web-domain of its own. And yet, I know that the library is an incredibly central part of the community.

More later.