Social networking and libraries

I was particularly interested in the Rotorua site. It looked clean, yet friendly and easy to navigate. I think it must be great for the staff to see those comments from their friends. As a marketing tool, a presence on facebook or myspace seems a no-brainer for a public library. At the moment, all the web interaction in my library is one way. A borrower uses the online opac and reserves a book, or uses the online request form to ask for something we don't hold. I don't think they see that there are people at the other end at all. There is a growing band of library users who search for items on the net, request them over the net and our interaction with them is limited to the very small time they spend in the library collecting their items. If there is a self-checkout unit, you may never see them at all. I think we can do better. It they are on the net, then so should we. Not just the catalogue but something that shows who we are. Something that allows for communication other than 'click to reserve'. A social presence can combine podcasts of author talks, photos of displays, and feedback, feedback, feedback. We need to get conversations going with our users, and our friends can converse with each other. We all talk about making the library the community hub. We need to think about the online community as well.