July 5, 2007
Facebook Shuns Some Library Search Tools
Now that Facebook has released software to let people design their own applications for the site, students can outfit their profiles with all sorts of accouterments — like music playlists, photo galleries, and so on. But don’t expect to see too many profiles with embedded library search applications: Evidently, Facebook isn’t too keen on those tools.
Steve Lawson of See Also… has compiled a list of college librarians who tried creating applications for Facebook, only to be turned down by site officials. Some librarians designed software intended to let students search library card catalogs, but were told that Facebook prohibits applications with “Web-search functionality of any kind.”
Why the apparent hostility to Web searching? “Facebook would like to keep you on Facebook,” writes Jessamyn West of librarian.net. “They would like to take your loyalty for other sites like Flickr and YouTube and shift it to Facebook so they can serve you Facebook ads while you look at the online content you were looking at anyway.”
Librarians contend that there is a clear difference between general Web-search tools and closed-network catalog-search services. And some institutions — like the University of Michigan, which has managed to release a Facebook application (Facebook registration required) — seem to have made that case successfully. We’ll see if the social network relaxes its stance on library search tools in the coming months. —Brock Read
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Facebook is a tool that is used for communicating people to communicate with one another. It should not be used as a library search engine. Should a student need a book or periodical they would pursue the item via existing methods of online search through the libraries homepage. No University needs to start investing time and funding into applications to allow library searches.
Students use the site as a mechanism to catch up with a friend not find a library book.
— Alexander Williams Jul 6, 09:18 AM #
But why couldn“t a student be on Facebook, chatting with a friend, and remember that they needed to do some research at the library? In the same way that I don’t usually go to the grocery store to get a coffee, but when the Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts is presented to me on the way to the produce isle—I appreciate the convenience and sometimes purchase one.
Maybe it is the sheer power of suggestion, but inserting the library into students’ everyday habits can surely only HELP them remember that the library is there, available and wants to help them—on their terms.
I applaud the libraries and librarians who are trying new things and new ways to reach students where they are, rather than sitting back and expecting the students to come to them. I hope Facebook comes around.
— Alice Sneary Jul 6, 09:37 AM #
This is a perfect example of how the business model gets in the way of functionality that people want for a fully developed social/professional environment, and why we won’t… shouldn’t be… held back by such constraints in the long run. An open, public model such as libraries have always represented, will prevail in the long run
— Stuart Weibel Jul 6, 10:58 AM #
Alexander/
Facebook is Not Just For BreakFast Any More. See the Friends: Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services blog
[ http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/ ]
/Gerry
— Gerry McKiernan Jul 8, 11:24 AM #
Friends/
I am puzzlement about the Outside Search Matter [?]
There is morre than one Facebook App for Wikipedia (as well as other Apps) that search OutSide Faccebook
[ http://apps.f8.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2352864526&b ]
/Gerry
— Gerry McKiernan Jul 8, 05:23 PM #
Friends/
There is GreatInterest in LibraryApps …
I created a Facebook group named
FacebookAppsForLibraries a day or so after the PlatForm Was Announced @ F8 (Late May)
As of 070707 there were Now MoreThan 600 members of This Group.
[Could Have Been 700] :-)
Please Do Join; It’s a Global Group
[ http://iastate.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2469777131 ]
/Gerry
P.S. There are a Number of Library-Related Facebook Groups that I’ve created. Feel Free To FriendMe To See and Know All …
[ http://www.facebook.com/p/Gerry_McKiernan/16926735 ]
— Gerry McKiernan Jul 8, 05:41 PM #
I don’t know to what factor I should attribute Michigan’s success with our Facebook library application. We were rejected twice, for two different but inapplicable reasons. On the third appeal (in which I noted that a library catalog search was not a “Web Search” and contained information from a proprietary and sadly closed system), the application was approved.
Ken Varnum
Web Systems Manager
University of Michigan Libraries
— Ken Varnum Jul 9, 01:43 PM #