Saturday, February 24, 2007

"I meet Jesus!!!! and he reads!!!"

The good people of The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County must be doing something right to get a comment like that on their library's MySpace page for teens. In fact, their whole LibraryLoft teen website is something of a knockout, in terms of both design and content. Check out their resource page on "Life Info: When Life's Not Always Easy or Fair." Well-organized, easy to navigate, and just plain gorgeous. I wouldn't be surprised if it's saved a couple of lives somewhere.

PLCMC might be exceptionally groovy , but they're not the only ones trying to get down with the kids through MySpace. There's a whole list of teen library MySpace pages at the Library Success Wiki. The YAAB (Young Adult Advisory Board) at the Fort Vancouver (WA) Regional Library District gets points for friending YA authors like Meg Cabot and Brent Hartlinger, but points off for the annoying song and a background pattern that makes the text almost impossible to read. Pawtucket Library's page isn't flashy, but has lots of useful info presented in an accessible way.

Even ALA is onto the MySpace trend; last year in New Orleans they passed this very formal-sounding "Resolution in Favor of Online Social Networks." Very nice, even if it doesn't answer that eternal question: if Jesus had a MySpace page, who would He friend????

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