Want to teach some LIS students about social software?

Starting in January, I’ll be teaching an online class on social software at San Jose State University. I am beyond excited about it! I’m really interested in having guest speakers in the class; people at libraries that are doing a lot with social software and can discuss the applications at their library as well as the practical aspects of making it all happen (selling the idea to staff and administrators, planning for and maintaining the social software applications, offering training, etc.).

My hope is to find people from different types of libraries (academic, public, school, special, etc.) to interview for the class. The opportunities and limitations are so different in each library type (not to mention each individual library!), so I think it would be helpful to have voices from these different types to make the students cognizant of the practical issues involved in implementing social software tools. If you’re doing a lot with social software at your library and would like to share your wisdom, please e-mail me a mgfarkas(at)gmail(dot)com and let me know what you’re working on.

There are three scheduled synchronous sessions for the class where I plan to have guest speakers (2/5, 2/26 and 4/1 from 6:30-8:00pm PT/9:30-11pm ET). We’ll probably spend the first 30 minutes of the course discussing class stuff and then spend the next hour with the guest speaker. Since we only have three synchronous sessions, any other interviews I do will be pre-recorded and I’ll make them available to the class to listen to at their leisure. For those, perhaps the students could ask the guest speaker questions in a class forum during the week as well.

My perspective on social software is shaped by my own experiences. I hope that by having a number of voices of people using social software in libraries, we can really show the students what’s possible. Thanks in advance for your help in making this class a great experience for the students!