Social network frenzy

Last night I discovered Facebook. I know, I know, it really isn’t anything new of course, but somehow I had never taken the plunge and created an account there. I have had a profile on MySpace for a few years and because I thought the two services were two halves of the same coin, I thought I’d just be content with MySpace even though I hate most things about it.

What a surprise. I actually like Facebook. And in Facebook, I actually have a lot of friends. By that I mean that there are many more people whom I know from one thing or another on Facebook and not on MySpace.

What does all of this gain me? I’m not sure, really, except that it feels good to join networks of people whom I know, and also I get to see or find out more information about friends than I would otherwise. For instance, I got to see lots of photos of friends, Ashley and Paul, that I hadn’t seen before. And another friend had lots of photos of his little baby boy that I hadn’t seen. And I can also see friends’ birthdays.

Obviously there is such a thing as too much social network stuff, and you can easily overload yourself. One way I found out this afternoon that I can reduce the risk of overload is that I figured out a way that my blog postings here can automatically be posted in both MySpace and Facebook without any extra work on my part. Automatic crossposting. That’s cool!

So…If you use either social network and are interested in adding me as a friend, please let me know. My Facebook profile is at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=552938337 and my MySpace profile is at http://www.myspace.com/murphymoose. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I have a profile in LinkedIn as well.

Latest issue of Beneath the Bell Tower

The latest issue of Beneath the Bell Tower, my library’s online newsletter, was made available in December but I neglected to mention it here ’til now. Of particular note is that this issue features a completely new and more professional design thanks to Ashley, one of the student web developers who worked for me (she graduated in December). There is a feature article on books that Taylor faculty deem influential, as well as an article on the recent visit to campus by John Stott, renowned Bible expositor, lecturer, minister, and (for those Americans who are eternally interested in “royalty”) longtime chaplain to the Queen of England. There was a recent New York Times article about him, an op-ed piece by David Brooks (registration required to view). Another article is about the interesting things held in our very own Archives & Special Collections, including a cow creamer collection that will be featured in an upcoming episode of Unwrapped, a favorite TV show of ours on The Food Network (it’ll air on Feb. 21 at 9p EDT).

Graduation and engagement

Earlier this week two of the students with whom I work got engaged. That was pretty exciting news! Paul is graduating tomorrow and I’m hoping that he will get a job locally so that he can be nearby while his fiance, Ashley, completes her degree and graduates in December. Yesterday I had a small party for them and for the third student who works with me. They are all good friends.

Beneath the Bell Tower

One of the many neat things about my job is working with students and providing them with opportunities to learn and apply some of the things they are learning in their classwork. One of my students, Ashley, has applied a lot of her considerable graphic arts know-how to make my library’s newsletter a very professional looking publication. The newsletter is entitled Beneath the Bell Tower and we just published the latest issue. It’s exciting to see!