How do libraries connect with users on the Web?

[Ginny Hendricks]

Hi everyone, I'm interested in what kinds of Web 2.0 activities libraries are undertaking (as compared to a year ago) to connect with their users.

Do a lot of academic libraries have a facebook group, their own networking site here on ning, a blog, an 'ask a librarian' live chat feature, do they deliver subject-specific news by SMS or RSS?

It would be great to have some best practices shared here about how to engage students and faculty on the Web.

Ginny

[Fiona O'Brien]

I am not currently an academic librarian (although have been in the past) but have worked on some projects to connect would-be users with library collections (marketing by any other name?), such as Inspire: www.findit.org.uk and on the London Libraries website: http://www.londonlibraries.org/listsubjects.jsp

I'm also interested in how established and new media can support lifelong learning and was interested to read this post by Brian Butterworth on the BBC's backstage forum:

" I read the other day about how Andy Ducan (sic) was say the BBC wasn't "down with the kids", but the iPlayer with the Wii and iPhone interface just shows how the BBC can make its excellent content available to people who have migrated from the TV.

I sold my TV ages ago, and just watch the iPlayer on a computer monitor... perfect.[.....]

It would be nice if the BBC News channel could also be archived and kept online - along with the subtitle output for ease of search engine indexing...

If you could navigate through the archive, you could link to them from Wikipedia for a start. It would be great for citizens of the UK to find again the pronouncements by our great leaders and analysis of BBC correspondents. .

Would be just excellent for research..."

I'd be interested to know if any librarians are thinking along the same lines to facilitate access to our unique materials in a similar way and ideally link these to other "publishers" as media converges?