Teen social networking at the library

Some public libraries aim to be teen hangouts too – the in-person kind that is. And they're doing so partly by supporting online social networking at the library. The ultimate goal, of course, is "to get teens into reading and writing," the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports, and a program called "Blog It" at Hennepin County libraries is one way to get there, librarians say, because blogging is "a literacy activity," as one librarian put it. Blog It encourages teen patrons to write and develop a voice in a safe way. Meanwhile, new social-networking sites for book lovers may turn out to be a support to libraries' embrace of the social Web. They're virtual book clubs – for example, LibraryThing.com, MySpace Books, and a Seattle start-up called Shelfari.com (where you set up your own virtual "bookshelf" instead a mere profile – your reading profile, in effect, maybe a little like a compilation CD representing all of one's favorite tunes). The site "allows people to list book titles, write reviews, recommend books to friends and find like-minded bibliophiles," the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.