which one are you?

Class divisions, and subdivisions, do exist. In-group/out-group thinking goes deep and It would be naive to think that it wouldn't be reflected online.

Boyd’s (2007) sense of how class divisions are possibly being played out in MySpace vs. Facebook is interesting and is not something I would have noticed -- or even really thought about -- on my own, at least without a lot more exposure to these services.

This possibility is important to explore in the same way that it's important to explore what patrons might need and want when building collections. It could be a mistake to form solid assumptions based on this one speculative (but informed) article but librarians would do well to at least mentally bookmark Boyd's observations and concerns, if not to take actions, including:

• look into it: informally (through conversation, or studying activity on the library's SNS profiles) or formally (interviews, brief surveys) check with patrons to get a sense of whether this class division is prominent at their library (it may already be very obvious)
  
• when setting up a library presence on an SNS, keep in mind which group of patrons may be most likely to be the readership (and keep a watch to test Boyd's hypothesis)
  
• not (potentially) discriminating by being a presence on only one or the other (it's not a bad idea to have multiple profiles anyway)
  
• if there is a real division, considering the option of setting up a neutral SNS through Ning, as a middle ground and a bridge builder -- it might not work, but who knows?
  

What may be more remarkable than class divisions and cliques showing up on social networking sites is the intermixing online of people who normally would not mix -- that's surely happening too. Libraries can encourage this, and be sensitive about not adding to any divisions.

Boyd, Danah. (2007). Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace .Apophenia Blog Essay. June 24, 2007. Retrieved June 2008 from http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html