Thing 22 Nings

Through the Ning site I looked at nings that sounded interesting, child lit, web 2.0, libraries, service to children, but most of the time they had not been updated since May, they had no discussions, they were "under construction", so on and so forth.  I always came back to the Teacher Librarian ning, and joined that this morning. I am also a member of the Texas School Librarian ning, which provides a smaller scope.  In my view, a ning is another way to network and share ideas with colleagues, but I don't know if it has any advantages over the subject specific list serve other than you can have immediate access to graphics and media.  A list serve usually shares media via links, but the blog can also provide immediate access.  

A ning isn't useful if people do not participate, and I stand accused of not participating in the nings to which I belong.  It seems my list serves stay active all year long, and I participate in them all year. For a lark,  I clicked on the web pages included in the user profiles in Teacher Librarian and Texas Librarian, and in most cases their web sites and blogs were current. The individual simply  hadn't really participated in the ning for some time. What does that mean? Maybe some of us have established a social network via a listserve, and the ning is a duplication, another thing to keep current.  Maybe it is generational, with the younger librarians, having grown up with facebook and myspace and establishing their networks in that platform, finding the ning as a familiar friend/mode.  Maybe the ning provided another way to access a blog or web site. 

Some of my child lit group tinkered with myspace, facebook, etc. this summer, and many of them thought it was faster to use the listserve and the blogs to share and discuss. At this time I prefer the blog, the list serve, and to a certain extent, the wiki. However, I have been known to change my opinion if  I receive "new information."