Users of online social networking sites have made significant advances in the development of global virtual communities. With their origins in listservs, egroups, blogs, chat rooms and instant messaging, social networking sites provide opportunities for users with required skills, to construct public or semi-public profiles, to interact with ???friends??? and colleagues across the globe and to collaboratively create social capital.
The presentation will focus on the impact of social networking on the Caribbean. It will examine participation of Caribbean people, including candidates in recent general elections held in 2007 and 2008, in popular social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. The assessment will cover factors influencing membership and participation, conditions under which content is created and information shared, as well as issues of privacy and protection.
In recognition of the successes of these sites in facilitating interaction among large geographically dispersed groups of users, sharing content, collaborating with peers, and linking communities, the presentation will also examine and assess the role of information literacy the activities of library social networking sites, and their contribution to the development of interactive information resources in the social sciences.International Federation of Library AssociationsUniversity of Toronto, LibraryUniversity of Toronto, Faculty of InformationUniversity of Illinois, LibraryTitle VI National Resource Center Grant (P015A060066)unpublishednot peer reviewe
