Dog Loving Librarians Who Knit and Watch Lost: Creating Communities in ALA Connect

One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.orgSo say you're a dog-loving librarian who likes to knit and watch Lost, and you're looking for other librarians who share your interests. But how do you find them?Sure, you could try using your expert web-searching skills, and maybe you'd even find a hit or two. Here's someone who enjoys Lost, knitting, and is a librarian, AND loves dogs. It's a perfect score.

September 15, 2009

One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.org

So say you’re a dog-loving librarian who likes to knit and watch Lost, and you’re looking for other librarians who share your interests. But how do you find them?

Sure, you could try using your expert web-searching skills, and maybe you’d even find a hit or two. Here’s someone who enjoys Lost, knitting, and is a librarian, AND loves dogs. It’s a perfect score.

Or, you could try lurking around dog parks, and knitting circles, and asking everyone if they’re also librarians, and happen to enjoy watching Lost. But that all seems like a lot of trouble.

Instead, why not create your own dog-loving, knitting, Lost-watching librarian community by using ALA Connect?

ALA Connect is a great tool that allows anyone to create a community around any interest they like, or around a whole bunch of interests. To create a community, simply log in to ALA Connect, at connect.ala.org and select the “Create a Community” link along the top-left sidebar.

From here, you can simple enter the name of your group: Diog-loving librarians who knit and watch Lost; provide a description of your group, and then you’re pretty much done.

If you want to can also add ALA Connect subject headings to your group to help other people find them, enter a group email or an external RSS, and you can even enter a mission statement for your group.

Once you’re done, just hit submit at the bottom of your page, and your group will be created.

Now you and every other dog-loving, knitting, lost-watching librarian can come together, using all of ALA Connect’s great networking tools. Submit posts, collaborate together on online documents, share a calendar, upload images, and do a lot more.

Browse other ALA Connect communities to find more librarians with other interests.

Not interested in knitting? Create other communities around whatever topics you like, such as the evils of cross-stich, the superiority of pie over cake, or the supreme awesomeness of Ranganathan.

ALA Connect makes it easy to find other librarians that share your quirky librarian interests. Try it now at connect.ala.org.

Music: Cherry Rag by Tom Joad and Gerry Dempsey, available at www.archive.org.

Promotional video for ALA Connect produced by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I.FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.org

Using ALA Connect with Your Existing Social Media Tools

One in a series of introductory screencasts created by the ALA Emerging Leaders Group I FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://connect.ala.orgALA recognizes that many of its members are well-versed in online social media tools. Connect isn't intended to be a replacement for your favorite social media network, but it makes it easy to share information with your networks with just a few simple clicks.

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