At its heart, social media has less to do with technology or a particular application than forging connections with others. How one creates those connections is the question the author posed to some insightful social media users. From a publisher of multiplatform books and a passionate educator to an Internet pioneer and a children's book author,…

The author describes how she was able to broadcast her whereabouts, her moods, and her desire to connect with friends for dinner to over 150 conference attendees simultaneously, using her mobile phone through a service called Twitter. Twitter enables social butterflies like the author to instantly publish brief messages to a network of contacts.…

In this article, the author describes how she was able to allow her students to talk with author Cynthia Leitich Smith through Skype, a free Internet telephony service. The author also describes how Skype can be used for recording podcasts and enhancing the reference services of libraries. Here, the author shares ideas on using Skype in libraries.

Blogs and the whole gamut of interactive, Web-based tools are redefining how we connect with people and content on the Internet. This is the widely discussed next step known as Web 2.0, a truly revolutionary concept in which pervasive interactivity, where multitudes of users online actively exchange or contribute content, will transform the very…

Everybody wants to turn teens into regular library users, and a new report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project is chock-full of information that can help. If librarians better understand kids' online needs, and create libraries and services that respond to these needs, then teens will be much more likely to visit their libraries--either in…