During the month of October a group of YALSA Bloggers spent time looking at social networking sites. Everyday they added a new post talking about a new site or group of sites and how libraries or schools can positively use them. If you missed these posts I suggest you check out the recently released pdf, which includes all of them.

Anyway, I wanted to take a second to mention a few other sites that I think are a lot of fun and have some good potential for libraries. The first site I want to mention is www.bookcrossing.com . According to the site, and also now the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, a bookcrossing is “n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.” If you’re still confused as to what Bookcrossing is then the “3 Rs” of Bookcrossing should help.

1. Read a good book (you already know how to do that)
2. Register it here (along with your journal comments), get a unique BCID (BookCrossing ID number), and label the book
3. Release it for someone else to read (give it to a friend, leave it on a park bench, donate it to charity, “forget” it in a coffee shop, etc.), and get notified by email each time someone comes here and records a journal entry for that book. And if you make Release Notes on the book, others can Go Hunting for it and try to find it!

Basically the idea is to create a worldwide library and to share books. This has potential for some real fun programming that could promote reading. You could host a program, or maybe try combining it with a Teen Advisory Board meeting, that involves teens bringing in a book to label and write a journal entry for. Then you send them all out into the community to release the books. From there you simply keep track of the books online and see what happens to them. Or better yet, the librarian can release a bunch of books into various places in the community and record where they are on the site. Then your teens can use the hunting feature to go find them and read them. If you can think of a more fun way to get teens excited about reading a good book than a community wide scavenger hunt I would like to hear it.

The next site I want to mention is a little more obscure and does not apply to libraries quite as directly but it is my personal favorite social networking site so indulge me. It is called Frolf Caddy. According to the creator “Frolf Caddy is a user driven disc golf community, which aims to bring frolf players together.” For those unfamiliar with it disc golf is a sport very similar to regular golf except you throw discs or Frisbees toward a basket rather than hit golf balls toward a hole. Basically Frolf Caddy is a website where disc golf players meet online to share scores, courses, stories, and anything else disc golf related. The site will keep track of all your scores every time you play and give you all sorts of stats so you can analyze your game as well as compare it to your friends. So how does this apply to your library? Well that depends on your community, if you don’t live near any disc golf courses then it doesn’t, but chances are there are at least a few courses near your area and you can use the sites course locator to find out. If that’s the case why not have a program based around Frisbee golf for your teens. You can have a local player come in to talk about the game, the equipment and of course the site. Or if you know some of your teens are frolfers then simply tell them about the site, they are bound to love it. Be creative, there are many ways you could use this site if you think your teens would find it interesting. If you are still unsure trust me, it is huge across the country, especially among high school and college students so use the site to find a player in your community and see if they have any ideas.

The main thing that you should learn, both from the Yalsa pdf, and from my rantings on social networking sites is that they come in many different varieties and they have many possible applications for your library. They don’t need to be a scary or foreign thing; they are simply online communities for people who share interests such as books, disc golf, or anything else. So, find a site that would be interesting to your teens, explore it, and find a way to use it at your library.