Linkedin

LinkedIn smurfs by 99zeros

I have had a week's break from blogging for two reasons: the first being that the Librarian and I embarked on a major stock check of the rare book collection, trying to discover how much of it is catalogued online. We made the wild and totally unfounded assumption that it was all on there somewhere. The first hour quickly disabused us of that hope. We finished the basic checking of over 6000 books in a week but the queries and adding of missing records will keep me busy for much longer. The second reason is that after Facebook I needed a lie down in a darkened room with a damp cloth on my forehead before I felt able to tackle the next Thing. Last Wednesday, faced with a choice of more blogging or poking about among old and dusty tomes, I'm afraid that age and dust proved to be the greater temptation.

OK, finished with digression. Must concentrate. I looked at all of the suggested profiles on Linkedin. Some had more on than others, like Facebook you can reveal as little or as much about yourself as you like. The big difference is that Facebook is more of a personal networking site whereas Linkedin is solely professional. You can put your CV up there and find other people in the same areas of business. All users wanting to see the whole of your profile have to ask first so you can reject any undesirable suitors. Twitter feeds can also be added to a profile but this would depend on the kind of tweets you receive. Should a profile be completely professional or does it matter if some of the personal sneaks in?

I can see how this would be a useful tool in the business world (and popular with Smurfs as well!) but less so in the library community.