MIDLINE

From Mary Markland, 2008 Midwest Chapter President
Library of the Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Fargo, ND

Well, I did it...I signed up for a Facebook account. I've been meaning to do it for months but it always seems to slide down my to-do list. I was forced into it today as I wanted to look at the MLA groups on Facebook and I had to have an account to see them. Now to decide how much to put on my profile and if I will promote it for work-related purposes...

I feel like I'm doing fairly well with social networking - not out there on the bleeding edge but I've been trying to incorporate various tools into my professional and personal life. I've been using RSS feeds for keeping up-to-date for quite a while and I would really be lost without them. I got turned on to del.icio.us by Bryan Vogh, former Technology Coordinator for the GMR/NNLM. I had a massive list of bookmarks that needed organization and a thorough weeding. With del.icio.us, I've got a nice personal account that works for me. More interestingly, I've been using it a lot at work. I teach several EBM workshops on a regular basis and I was tired of constantly revising handouts. Apparently this is not an original idea but I created an EBM del.icio.us page and now it is so much simpler to keep everyone up-to-date. With that minor success, I decided to create a more general del.icio.us site for my job. I use it for presentations and general medical interests. My categories can use some revision but it works. I was excited to see a UND medical student link to me... and I don't even know the student. She's got a lot of great links too. I think I'm going to create a new business card with the account information and forgo all handouts. I'm also going to start putting my PowerPoint slides on SlideShare. Save a tree is my new motto! (The Fall issue of MIDLINE had a great article on social bookmarking.)

My library is slowly adding tools to our repertoire too. Our webpage can serve as an RSS reader, our staff manual is a wiki and we use Meebo for virtual reference. I'm interested in exploring how texting might work for virtual reference and how to conveniently provide links for journal RSS feeds. I was really impressed by the work being done on this at the Ebling Library at the University of Wisconsin. They had a paper at the Fall meeting you might want to check out.

One other tool I've been playing with is LinkedIn. I was invited to "link in" by some colleagues at the University of Michigan and it's been fun seeing who knows whom and how people can be connected. It vaguely reminds me of that 6 Degrees of Separation Game with Kevin Bacon except I think it is actually useful.

So what are you doing with these tools? If you are hampered by your IT departments, have you found solutions? Will you be my friend on Facebook or how about connecting up in LinkedIn? I am really interested in knowing what's going on in our chapter. Send me a note - it doesn't have to be more than a few sentences. I would like to compile some success stories to share. My email is markland at medicine.nodak.edu.

P.S. Don't forget there is an upcoming an upcoming MLA webcast,"Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices: Discovering the Participatory Web," on Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 1:00 p.m. Find more information about the program's goals, objectives, and online registration at:
http://www.mlanet.org/education/distance_ed/web2.0/index.html?focus_20070110

P.P.S. The Medical Library Association Facebook sites:

• Medical Library Association's Technology Trends
• Leadership and Management Section of the Medical Library Association
• MLA Social Networking Software Task Force
• Medical Library Association (unofficial)
• Educational Media & Technologies Section of Medical Library Association