Nine Library Experts Interviewed on Social Networking Trends

OCLC, an international library service and research organization, interviewed 9 experts on how they see the evolution of social networks.

"While the term social networking may be new, the concepts behind it—creating community, sharing content and collaborating with others—are not. In fact, they have been around for a long time, as early as the time of Plato in 400 B.C., when scholars and philosophers studied and analyzed the formation and interaction of groups of people. What is new is the digital medium, which makes connecting with other people faster, easier and more accessible to a wider population than it’s ever been before. The challenge is how to apply social networking in a digital age to enhance and extend the public service mission of libraries, museums and archives."

The experts are Lori Bell (Alliance Library Systems, Second Life Librarian and Director of Innovation), Edward Castronova (Indiana University, Associate Professor of Telecommunications),Paul Jones (ibiblio.org, Director), Hemanshu Nigam (MySpace, Chief Security Offfice), Kitty Pope (Alliance Library System, Second Life Librarian and Executive Director), Fred Stutzman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ph. D. Student), Stuart L. Weibel, Ph. D. (OCLC, Consulting Research Scientist).