Well, I’ve been testing the waters of online social networking and have decided to start my first NING site (but not my last!)
If you haven’t used a NING before, the concept behind it is really simple: An online resource that allows you to post messages, events, build sub-groups, and generally share information with others that have similar interests. With my interests being Law Libraries, I joined the lawlibraires ning. This NING was set up by Jim Milles of Buffalo (who is one of the true braintrusts of law librarianship.) And currently, it has over 300 members.
So, borrowing Jim’s idea of using a NING for bringing librarians together, I decided to build a NING for my Texas Chapter of the Special Libraries Association. A few minutes (okay, maybe a couple of hours) later, I have the SLATexas NING!! I sent out my invites to my list of members, and within 24 hours, we have 60+ members, 5 or 6 subgroups, and a number of other messages flowing between the members. Not too shabby!! Of course, I drafted Barbara Fullerton in on the whole mess so that she could point out the do’s and don’ts of an online community.
I think this is going to be a pretty good tool!!