One of the new places I have been hanging out online lately is in the LIS Students Ning.
Ning is a sort of complete social networking package that people can setup for their groups. I believe that there is a Library 2.0 Ning and I imagine many others. This one is for “Students in Library and Information Science (and recent grads and friends)” according to the header on the main page.
It is small but growing. I have already met a few people I did not know, and have found several interesting student blogs of which I was unaware. I even met one of our own LEEP students. Actually, I’m pretty sure I met Mandy f2f last summer during Boot Camp since I still worked for ITD then, but having left ITD I have little exposure to most of the LEEP students anymore. So that was nice. I now have a LEEP buddy to meet for coffee or drinks during the next 2 on campus sessions, since most (all?) of my previous LEEP buddies have already or will have graduated in a few weeks.
I’m not sure what I think of Ning yet. It is sort of like MySpace for adults. It seems a bit slow on occasion. OK, it is a bit slow. But it allows for little communities of like interest to form with a fairly complete package of tools included; blogs, forums, email, chat, picture and video sharing, and other things.
There is an aggregated RSS feed that brings in posts from all the (external) blogs of current members. So we have access to an internal blog if we want, which has a feed, as do most of the other features, such as the forum. And you can even add your own blog to the feed easily enough yourself. I managed to do it and I don’t even use Google Reader.
Anyway, if you are any of the following: “Students in Library and Information Science (and recent grads and friends)” you might want to join us. If you are interested in interacting with more students from a wider range of places than where you are locally, but cannot bring yourself to venture too far afield in the wider blogosphere or other fora, then consider joining us.
It’s relatively easy, and it’s free.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Mandy // Apr 26, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Hey- I’m so excited my name was mentioned in someone else’s blog!
) I’m just getting started on this madness of crazy-online social networking. I’ve been a reluctant blogger, utillizing the cheap thrills of myspace to disperse my rants about life in general. I get nervous putting it all out there- so my main (unrated) blog remains on myspace, for friends’ viewing only, but I hope to soon blog freely among the minions of librarians…with my own tiny opinions.
Mandy
p.s. we did meet last summer- albeit briefly. I think you outlined me on how to use WebFTP or something like that, since I was skipping out on the HTML training. By the way, I have to figure out a way to switch over from FYP to DAV without losing my mind…any suggestions?
2 Mandy // Apr 26, 2007 at 7:13 pm
p.s. that was supposed to be fTp, not fYp.
3 Mark // Apr 27, 2007 at 6:24 am
Ah yes, I distinctly remember now. I knew I had seen you, at least, but I theoretically “saw” all new LEEPers without necessarily meeting all of them.
Good question, and one I should check on myself. I have a ton of stuff in my WebFTP space! I thought perhaps they moved it for us, but I haven’t done anything with it this semester. Since I got my own domain I’ve just been putting my presentations up there instead.
I’ll check on it, but in case you get tired of waiting on me (possible!) you should just ask Matt, Jill or Elizabeth or one of the techs. They’ll be happy to help. And seeing as they get paid for those answers it is more of a priority for them.
4 Anna // May 18, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Do you think the LIS Students NING folks would be interested in the graduate assistantship program at MPOW? It’s set up so that folks get a second master’s degree paid for by the institution while also getting two years of post-graduate library experience for their resume. Most of our graduates so far have not had trouble getting jobs after the program. More info here: http://www.eclecticlibrarian.net/blog/archives/000783.html
5 Mark // May 19, 2007 at 10:50 am
I do think that some of them would be. Heck, I would be, except this is for this coming year. Maybe we can talk about it in Louisville as something I might consider for the next year, depending on how the rest of life plays out.
Do you want to join and post it there, or would you like me to?