Thing 12 - Do You Digg?

How do you think you can use these tools in your library or at home?
If I knew that these social media sites were popular with our students, I would create accounts (and perhaps "friend" some students) to see what kinds news stories they were reading. As things stand now, I believe the most important "social" websites for our students are Facebook and MySpace. As college students, they seem to be more interested in the news from their friends' lives than the news of the world. (This is a broad generalization, I know.)

Looking on these social media sites can give us an idea of what news stories are popular with people. Just because something is in the news does not necessarily mean that people care about it, and these social media sites provide the popularity element. This might help us with collection development, as we seek to anticipate the kinds of topics that students might choose for their argumentative research writing papers.

Do these tools seem to be a productivity enhancer or a productivity detractor?
I do not think these tools will necessarily increase my productivity, but they may increase my creativity. These news stories may give me insights or new ideas for teaching, and keeping up with current events might help me in my work at the Reference desk.

I've noticed that I've occasionally been helped in my reference work by something that I've read in my Bloglines. It has occasionally happened that a news story from a feed I subscribe to gave me a good background for the context of a reference question. The difference between my Bloglines and these social media sites is that I have selected the general kinds of information (mostly education and library news) that comes through my Bloglines, whereas the stories that come through Digg and other social media sites are chosen by the masses. Reading these news stories might give me context and background information for a wider variety of reference questions that come to the desk.

Have you ever read a story/item as a result of seeing it on one of these sites?
Now I have! I must admit I had never visited one of these sites before, with the possible exception of Digg. Some of my friends who blog about current events occasionally credit Digg as the site where they found the link to an interesting news story.