Most Interesting Man Asks A Librarian

Not sure how to cite your sources, where to find materials in the library, or how to use the databases? 

AskALibrarian!

Tarleton Libraries is always ready to help you with your research needs. You can also give us a call at 254-968-9249 or send questions via any of our social media outlets. We look forward to helping you.

http://www.tarleton.edu/library/index.html

Happy Birthday Facebook

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the launch of Facebook. Facebook even had a cool link were you could create a retrospective movie of your highlights from the past. That leads me to ask - do you still use Facebook? How do you use it? For communication, for news,  the latest trends? Below are some of the top uses of Facebook (in no particular order). Please post a comment and share your thoughts on the topic, and let us know if you still use Facebook!

• To keep up with friends and family  
• View pictures
• Send private messages or chat with others
• Post and view funny videos
• To locate friends from your past
• Recipes
• Games
• To be aware of political and social views
• To learn about breaking news and events
• As a distraction or to relieve boredom

Midterm Mania

Want to contribute to the Midterm Mania conversation?
 Check out the hashtag: #TSUMidtermMania

Midterm Mania is happening NOW! 

Are you bogged down with midterms? Have a huge research paper due? 

Check out the library's Twitter account: @TarletonLib

During Midterm Mania, we have been tweeting helpful tips for students concerning Midterms.

Don't have a Twitter? That's okay. 

We've also been posting to Facebook. 

Check us out and Follow and/or Like us. 

Tarleton Thursdays: Did you know?

As you know from a previous blog post done in January, the library has several outlets of social media. We have a Facebook page, Twitter, Pinterest, and Flickr, to name a few. You can find out when the library's upcoming events, hours, and resources that are available.

Did you know that we've had a Facebook page and Twitter since 2009, Flickr since 2007 and we just added Pinterest a few months ago. Makes you wonder how the library managed without social media before!




Tarleton Libraries Joined Facebook on October 16, 2009

@TarletonLib also began in 2009

Have any of our social media outlets ever helped you out? Let us know how we can better help you with your academic needs. As always, feel free to comment, like us, tweet or email us!

 

Call (254) 968-9249 or Email reference@tarleton.edu for help.
We love to help.

More on Facebook privacy

Following up on the Facebook privacy tips post a couple days ago, here's a link to The Always Up-to-Date Guide to Managing Your Facebook Privacy, a post on the Lifehacker website that they promise to keep current with changes to Facebook privacy practices, which are usually unannounced. Bookmark it!

10 Facebook Privacy tips

These tips are from a joint presentation given by Career Services and the Dick Smith Library. For details, check out this PDF.

10. Check your account's privacy settings regularly. Facebook sometimes revises privacy features without notifying users.

9. Don't use Facebook to log onto or leave comments on other sites...or even public Facebook pages. Even an innocent misspelling or slightly political comment might come back to haunt you one of these days. If you have to comment, do so anonymously--and avoid hateful comments, since your IP address is easily traceable.

8.Restrict the use of your information in Facebook ads.

7. Restrict apps and games. Even if you don't take quizzes or play games, third-party companies can access your information through your friends who do.

6. Create and customize groups. Then decide which group can access personal information about you. For example, you may not want your boss to see wall posts about your love life.

5. Test your privacy settings. Don't assume everything is OK.

4. Control access to your photo albums and videos. You may not want your "Family" group to have access to party photos from last week. Actually, it's probably best to leave those photos off of Facebook altogether. **Update: Facebook has now enabled facial recognition software so that it is easier to tag your friends in photos. If you don't want others to tag you in photos, go to Account Settings-->Customize Settings-->Suggest photos of me to friends-->Edit Settings-->Disabled-->Okay.

3. Edit your profile, including your picture. It may be possible for an identity thief to reconstruct your information with your full name and birth date.

2. Use https://; add a security question. Https: provides a secure socket layer to encrypt your information. A security question makes it more difficult for other people to log into your account.

1. Decide whether you want to be shown in search engine results.

Thunderstorms in Cloud Computing OR Back Ups to the Rescue

The recent glitch in Amazon's cloud storage that knocked out several popular websites is a timely reminder that backing up materials is usually best practice.

Now that we're all storing so many items on social media, we often forget that digital storage doesn't equal permanent storage (not sure what does) and forget to make backups. Then, when something does go wrong, all we can do is mourn the loss of those files, pictures, papers, etc.

To help us avoid that situation, the tutorial "How To: Back Up Your Social Media Presence Before the Ball Drops" by Brenna Ehrlich at Mashable provides great tips for downloading and backing up many types of online content. The tutorial is organized into four parts, so finding just what's needed should be a snap:

-- Back Up Your Facebook
-- Back Up Your Tweets
-- Back Up Your Blog
-- Back Up Your Photos

Homeland Security uses Twitter and Facebook For New Alert System

Homeland Security Taps Twitter, Facebook For New Alert System  It is like Code Purple for the nation! No more level Orange threats. Facebook and Twitter are widely used, but what about the older generation or those without computers, the internet, or cell phones?

The new system is supposed to launch April 27th.  They will post warning "when appropriate."  It is probably not too far removed from the emergency broadcast system warnings and tests that go out over TV and radio. Might as well tap into Twitter an Facebook if people are on them all day long, right?

Top Ten Tuesday: Stay Informed

The following list, in no particular order, offers links to Tarleton resources that will help you stay in the know.

• Tarleton homepage
• Check out news releases, spotlighted announcements, and upcoming events notices.
• Current Students page
• Learn about campus life, technology & support, news & events, student activities, and health & safety, as well as locate featured links from the Bleed Purple page.
• Bleed Purple page
• Find links to all things purple:
  Tarleton on Facebook, Tarleton YouTube videos, Tarleton blogs, photo archives, the Purple Book, and more.
• J-TAC
• Read articles about campus life, sports, and entertainment, along with editorials and letters to the editor.
• Post comments to the message board.
• Tarleton Radio KTRL 90.5 FM and The Planet 100.7 FM
• Listen to music, announcements, and live broadcasts.
• Texan News Service, sponsored by Tarleton's Communications Studies Department
• View Texan TV News and read feature, sports, and news stories.
• University News from the Marketing & Communications Department
• Read press releases, submit event information, search for subject experts, and access the Publications Guide.
• Tarleton Today
• View articles about Tarleton events, athletics, and activities, as well as campus announcements.
• Submit event information for inclusion in future postings.
• University calendar
• Look up events by dates and categories.
• Code Purple
• Enroll in Code Purple to receive notifications about health and safety emergencies, closings or delays due to weather, and crime or other events that pose a threat to those on or coming to campus.

Top Ten Tuesday: Facebook

It's Tuesday! That means a list. You all use Facebook. You see it on monitors all over the library. So I decided to give you 10 reasons you should follow/like the Tarleton Libraries on Facebook!

• Show your support for the library.
• Find out what new databases and resources are available.
• It is a way to contact us for help.
• See the events coming up in the library.
• View our photos...who knows, you might see yourself!
• Read the LOL blog, as it is fed into Facebook.
• See what others are saying about the library.
• Write on our wall to let us know how we can improve to better help you!
• Find out information about the library, like our hours and resource links.
• See what services the library has to offer.

I'm sure you can think of many more reasons to follow/like us on Facebook...so PLEASE DO!!!

Protect Your Future Employment Today

I recently read an article online about a company asking a potential employee to sign a nondisclosure agreement stating that they would not mention their company's name on Twitter, Facebook, etc... I had never heard of this, but I have heard of companies searching their would be employess on those same social networking sites. Check out the following articles, and see if you need to change the settings on your Twitter or Facebook account while you are job searching.

Check these out:
Social Media Guidelines in Your Job Search and Workplace
http://www.theworkbuzz.com/employment-trends/social-media-guidelines/?cobrand=msn&siteid=cbmsnhpbuzz&gt1=23000

Employers Look at Facebook, too
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/20/eveningnews/main1734920.shtml

Choose Privacy Week, May 2-8 2010

May 2-8 is the first ever Choose Privacy Week, sponsored by the American Library Association. ALA describes Choose Privacy Week as a "new initiative...about privacy rights in a digital age", where libraries can "give citizens the resources to think critically and make more informed choices about their privacy." ₁

Although online services such as Google and Facebook are undeniably convenient, they come with privacy concerns. For example, ALA states that "online searches create traceable records that make [users] vulnerable to questioning by the FBI, or that government agencies can track their phone calls, airline travel, online purchases, and more."₂

Facebook, for example, has been under fire recently for its privacy changes (Mark Zuckerberg, the founder, stated in January that "privacy is no longer a social norm."₃) In December of 2009, Facebook default settings were changed to public. In April 2010, Facebook made information "such as a user's hometown, education, work, activities, likes and interests public, whereas previously such information could be hidden."₄ And on May 5, Facebook suffered a major privacy glitch when private chats between members could be viewed publicly.

---

₁The American Library Association. "Choose Privacy Week." http://www.privacyrevolution.org/. Accessed May 6, 2010.

₂Ibid.

₃ Johnson, Bobby. The Guardian. "Privacy no longer a social norm, says Facebook founder." January 11, 1010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/11/facebook-privacy. Accessed May 6, 2010.

₄Brodkin, Jon. Networked World. "Consumer groups hammer Facebook privacy violations in federal complaint." http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/050610-facebook-privacy-violations.html. May 6, 2010. Accessed May 6, 2010.

University Facebooks pages

How many friends or fans does a college have on Facebook? No one likes a Facebook loner. Some perspective: Lady Gaga has a following of 6.6 million. Beer pong is liked by 950,350. Harvard, the birthplace of Facebook, has 33,986 fans. (So, Rice the university shouldn't feel bad that it's less popular than rice the food.) So, here's the list with counts as of Friday night. Only official university pages and groups count -- no alumni, class of whatever, athletic, club or other groups.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/campus-overload/2010/05/most_popular_colleges_on_faceb.html?wprss=campus-overload

A&M currently #1
UT - #1

Facebook & Privacy: Are You Exposed?

• Do you have a Facebook account?
• Did you choose the default privacy settings instead of setting your own?
• Are you wondering what others can learn about you?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, take a few minutes to read the article 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now by Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb.

Perez's article discusses Facebook's December privacy policy changes, explains ways the changes may increase exposure of private information, and gives tips for checking and setting your Facebook privacy settings to control:

• who can see the things you share (status updates, photos, videos, etc.),
• who can see your personal information, and
• what Google can see (i.e. keeping your data off the search engines).

The article also links to additional articles discussing Facebook's recent changes and privacy concerns.

Top Ten Tuesday – 10 Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy

With all the rainy weather and the addition of 30 more computers in the library, I have been seeing a LOT of folks on Facebook. I found this really great post about Facebook security and thought I would share. Please read the entire post for 'Great tips and How to' (it even includes pictures!).

Facebooks facts:

• 300 million active users
  
• Each user has an average of 130 friends
  
• 2 billion+ photos uploaded each month
  
• 70% of users try applications (games, quizzes, etc.)
  

Here is a quick 10 list of things you can (and cannot) do to safeguard your Facebook privacy. (Facebook Security shows step by step how to do each item)

1. Organize Friends in Lists
   
2. Customize Profile Privacy
   
3. Set Facebook Privacy Level of Photo Albums
   
4. Restrict Search Visibility
   
5. Control Automatic Wall Posts and News Feed Updates
   
6. Set Facebook Wall Privacy
   
7. Avoid Appearing in Advertisements
   
8. Protect Yourself from Friends' Applications
   
9. Privacy from Your Applications
   
10. Quitting Facebook? Delete, Don't Just De-Activate Your Account
    

I hope this list makes you think and gets you to read the article. It will give you a better understanding and insight into Facebook's privacy.

If you have ideas for future topics, questions or concerns please tell us in the comments!

15 Essential Web Tools for Students

A recent Mashable post by Josh Catone offers a guide to 15 Essential Web Tools for Students, plus links to the tools and tips for using them. With all the tasks everyone manages every day, these tools are very handy.

• Stay Organized: web applications to help you get and stay organized.
• Evernote -- note taking tool that lets you sync notes between the web, your phone, and any computer
• Notely -- solution for taking notes and staying organized
• GradeMate -- organizer for creating to-do lists, managing due dates, and collaborating
• Backpack -- tool for keeping research organized
  
  
• Study Better: web tools to help you get the most out of your study time.
• StudyRails -- for people who have trouble blocking out distractions when it comes time to study
• Diggo -- web-based highlighter and sticky note system for annotating your web research and sharing work with classmates
• Delicious -- tool for collecting web resources for a class, project, or paper under a single tag
• Mindmeister -- organize your thoughts and research through mind maps
  
  
• Work and Collaborate: web-based and social tools that help you get your work done and collaborate with others on group projects.
• Google Docs -- online word processing and spreadsheets applications that let you work together on group assignments
• EtherPad --collaboration tool that lets a group of people edit a document at the same time and see what everyone is writing as they write it
• Sliderocket -- online presentation building tool for creating multimedia presentations that are accessible from anywhere
• Wikidot -- a simple, wiki hosting solution for creating an unlimited number of wiki pages to organize projects and group research
  
  
• Cite Right: tools to help you keep track of your sources and cite them properly.
• CiteMe -- search the world’s largest library catalog by title, author, subject, or ISBN and get formatted citations in APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, or Turabian style
• EasyBib -- automatically create citations in APA, Chicago/Turabian, and MLA styles
• Zotero -- automatically collects your research sources and lets you create citations in any of one of over a thousand different styles

Check 'em out!

Facebook Quizzes

Quizzes abound on Facebook. Here are a few samples:

Which Harry Potter character are you?
Which Transformer are you?
How evil are you?
Who were you in a past life?
What is your biggest fear?
What kind of Mom are you?
What famous movie star are you?

When a user clicks on an icon to take a quiz, he or she will usually get a screen like the one below:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, is concerned that quizzes and other Facebook applications may be accessing a whole lot more than users realize.

For example, a user can reject a quiz but if his/her friend takes it, the quiz can still access almost all of the first user's information, unless it is specifically restricted by privacy settings.₁ They are also concerned by the fact that Facebook developers (the ones who create the quizzes) are not screened "for trustworthiness" or required to "comply with a privacy policy."₂

The ACLU of Northern California has created their own Facebook privacy quiz to test users knowledge of Facebook privacy policies and created an online petition for better privacy on the social networking site.

Recently Facebook agreed to increase user privacy in response to complaints from the ACLU and the Canadian Privacy Commission.₃

For more information, visit their Facebook page , take the quiz, or read one of the following related articles:

Harris, Scott Duke. "Facebook knows too much, ACLU says in warning of quizzes." San Jose Mercury News. August 26, 2009.

Hefflinger, Mark. "Facebook Increases Privacy Protections on Quiz Applications." digitalmediawire. August 27, 2009.

₁ Perez, Sarah. "What Facebook Quizzes Know about You." ReadWriteWeb.com
August 27, 2009.
₂ Ibid.
₃Hefflinger, Mark. "Facebook Increases Privacy Protections on Quiz Applications." digitalmediawire.com. August 27, 2009.

Facebook Vs. MySpace

Tarleton's MySpace and Facebook pages.

According to TechCrunch, in January of 2009 the amount of Facebook users was nearly double the amount of MySpace users.¹ As Facebook grows in popularity, more and more related studies are being conducted :

• Viewing American Class Divisions in Facebook and MySpace June 2007
• Study Finds Link Between Facebook Use, Lower Grades in College April 2009
• Study: Facebook use cuts productivity at work July 2009
• Could Facebook Be Sowing Seeds of Jealousy? August 2009
• Popularity Fuels Disclosure on Facebook, Study Finds August 2009

What do you think? Leave us a comment; we'd love to hear from you.

¹1Arlington, Michael. "Facebook Now Nearly Twice the Size of MySpace Worldwide." TechCrunch. Retrieved on August 25, 2009 at http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/22/facebook-now-nearly-twice-the-size-of-myspace-worldwide/

20 Facebook Tips/Tricks

20 Facebook Tips/Tricks You Might Not Know at Hongkiat.com offers a quick guide and instructions to some Facebook features that you might find useful. The features include how to

• Download Facebook Photo Albums
• Share Flickr Photos to Facebook
• Schedule Facebook Messages
• Hide Facebook Status Updates
• Know When Facebook Friends Secretly Delete or Block You
• Remove Facebook Advertisements
• Sync Photos of Facebook Friends with Contacts in Microsoft Outlook
• Get Facebook Updates on Email

Check out the article to learn about these features and 12 more.

Facebook & Privacy: Using One & Protecting the Other

We've all read or heard stories about the many ways Facebook postings have created social, professional, and economic havoc for people. Usually this causes us to wonder how we can avoid the same consequences.

One source of help is Tarleton's Career Services, which offers "Cleaning Up Your Digital Dirt" presentations. You can get more information by visiting Career Services (TSC 218) or calling their office (254-968-9078).

Another source of information is Nick O'Neill's 2-2-09 article "10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know" on AllFacebook (The Unofficial Facebook Resource). In this article, O’Neill offers a how-to guide for protecting your privacy on Facebook by controlling access to information.

A third source is the "Social Networks & Privacy" post on LOL, which offers links to articles about Facebook, employers, and employment.