As I looked around on Facebook for school libraries, media centers, or information literacy centers, I noticed that there are quite a few pages and they are equally split among elementary, middle, and high schools. I read posts that ranged from memes about libraries, books, and librarians to informative posts and pictures of events and even surveys. But these pages offer much more to their leaning communities - book reviews, parent notices, links to literacy and technology articles, virtual book clubs, book suggestions, website suggestions, newsletters, and recognition of awards. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of libraries that were represented and the amount of material that is being shared with their patrons and supporters. The posts had a lot of "likes" and a few even had comments posted by viewers. By far, the most activity was on the actual pictures of students. They were tagged with names and shared with others.
As a teacher librarian, I see that the marriage of technology and information in the library can be used to gain supporters and inform parents and the community about the wonderful skills that are being learned in the library. Keeping the parents involved in their child's learning is definitely a great advantage, as is promoting literacy by assisting the parents with resources. However, I can see the disadvantage being that you cannot rely on Facebook to be your only form of communication due to the fact that not everyone has Internet access and the way that Facebook operates their "newsfeed", every follower can potentially miss a posted status. A follower would have to go directly to the page regularly in order not to miss something. Student confidentiality could also be a huge issue so you have to be sure that the appropriate paperwork has been signed or that the student is unidentifiable.
As a first year librarian, I was fortunate to inherit a Facebook page for our ILC (Information Literacy Center). I can not take credit for the work that has been done on this page, but as an administrator, I can see how many people have viewed the posts. They range from 20 views to 750 views, with the majority of the posts being viewed about 150 times. Our campus is a large elementary campus of approximately 765 students, so those numbers tell me that we don't reach nearly as many supporters as we would like. You may view the Dr. Rodriguez Elementary ILC page at https://www.facebook.com/DrRodriguezElementaryILC?fref=ts.
I feel that the ILC Facebook page is an important part of the library communication and I will continue to promote the Facebook page and to keep it updated. Now that I have viewed other school library pages, I have quite a few ideas for my next posts and I can't wait to get started!
-Lisa
