Week 4: Choice / Twitter ... and Digital Literacy

Matt recently shared an article on managing multiple social networks. Author Ben Parr asserts, "People may disagree with me, but I believe you should sign up for the most popular social networks regardless of whether you are going to use them all. This prevents someone else being mistaken for you and protects an account that you may want to use later." (Parr's article on mashable.com) This comment, and indeed most of the article, assumes that your online presence and professional presence are intertwined -- if not one and the same.

I think that when (if) I get the chance to do web2.0 on behalf of HCPL, I'd create yet another user name. After all, I followed Parr's advice and went to Check User Names -- there's a lisalib on myspace, and that's not me. I might not want to be confused with her, certainly not for work. It would make sense to make a generic username tied to the position, not me: NPYA, or something.

I am intrigued by a final tip from Parr: atomkeep, which promises to allow me to update many social sites at once. This way, the twitter site I created could live on for those who would rather follow me that way.

Whenever I hear about a cool resource, or find one on my own, I want to share it. To the extent that teaching digital literacy and online safety is something public librarians should do, I'd love to be able to share Parr's article with patrons. The people who ask ref desk staff for "help with the computer" don't know how to sign up for an e-mail account and attach their resume. The patrons who can do that -- and more -- seldom ask our help. Wouldn't it be great if we could reach the tech-savvy with something like HCPL's Tech Tip of the Week? It could be a blog, with RSS -- and we could write an abstract version that would go out via Twitter? I don't tweet, so that's harder to picture.

Just thinking out loud on this one.