Thing 19 - myspace, yourspace

I hate myspace. Not because it is pointless or un-useful (is that a word?). No, I hate it because it is ugly. It is terribly aesthetically unpleasing. And some people make their profile pages just horrendous to visit: hard-to-read text over jarring graphics, audio files that autoplay when I don't want them to, those stupid meme graphics. Just, ugh.

But I do have a myspace page. I signed up for it earlier this year. I did it mainly to promote the new library zine collection -- to connect with other zine publishers and people interested in zines, as well as other zine libraries and librarians. I have used it to announce events and talk up some of the zines in our collection. I don't know how much my actions on myspace have resulted in drawing in new patrons to the library, but I have received a few zine donations because a publisher found me on myspace. Makes it worth it to me. I don't frequent the site, though (I already have plenty enough places to keep track of online). I try to drop in every couple of weeks, look for new "friends" to add every couple of months.

So, for this exercise, I decided to explore Facebook. I've been thinking about signing up for Facebook for a while now, so I'll go ahead and bite the bullet. I am hoping that Facebook will help me connect with other library school grad students and maybe others in the library profession. (Networking is important!) But, realistically, I don't know how much I'll keep up with it. As I said, all I need is one more website to visit. I can't even keep up with the grad school-related Yahoo groups I'm subscribed to.

I do think Facebook is a more aesthetically pleasing site than MySpace. I'm still feeling my way around, so I don't know yet how useful it will be to me, or if I'll keep my profile active in the longrun.