Are You a Networked Librarian?

Wow! While watching this 5-minute YouTube video, the Networked Student, originally loaded by Wendy Drexler, I couldn't help thinking what library services academic libraries will provide and what kind of skills librarians should acquire in order to provide the services to the networked students of the 21st century.



I think a networked librarian, at least, knows how these things are functioning and get a feel of and understand how they are connected together to create learning opportunities:

1. Social networking (e.g., Facebook, Linkedin, MySpace)
   
2. Social bookmarking (e.g., Delicious, Digg, CiteUlike, Connotea, Foxmarks)
3. Blog, blogging, and microblogging (e.g., Twitter, FriendFeed, Pownce)
   
4. Photo sharing (e.g., flickr, Picasa, Kodak Gallery)
5. RSS feed Readers (e.g., Google Reader, iGoogle, Bloglines, My Yahoo!)
   
6. Online collaboration (e.g., Google Docs, Wiki)
7. Information sharing using all the online tools mentioned above.
   

If you a librarian and don't use those tools, how are you going to understand patron needs and provide library services in the networked learning environment? Maybe, you think it is too time consuming to get into the pool and learn to swim in the online world. However, if you don't get your feet wet, you will never know how to swim. I believe networked students need networked librarians. It depends on whether you want to be one and how you prepare yourself to be one.