Social media policy annotated links

Protection, Not Barriers: Using Social Software Policies to Guide and Safeguard Students and Employees
Protection, Not Barriers 
 This article was written by Sarah K. Steiner and Brian K. Kooy and published in Reference & Users Services Quarterly. The authors, having recently written a social media policy for the University of Georgia, wanted to share their learning experiences because they both felt that academic librarians have been using social networking services and sites for the purpose of improving services to patrons for a long time but very little attention has been paid to drafting social networking policies. 


Libraries and Social Media
Libraries and Social Media 
The focus of this article published in Information Outlook, is on the legal reasons libraries should have a social media policy in place. Brian M.Carson believes that the issue of copyright and privacy laws. His concern is that the legal implications of the use of new technologies like Facebook and Twitter are based on old laws drafted long before social networking technologies and the Internet existed. He therefore, strongly suggests that libraries have social networking policies in place and that any existing policies should be carefully reviewed.


Librarians and Teen Privacy in the Age of Social Networking
Librarians and Teen Privacy 
This article by Nancy Kranich, published in Knowledge Quest an AASL publication focuses specifically in policies protecting teenagers right to online privacy. In the interest of providing teens safe access to the Internet, librarians should know and understand their rights and students rights under state and federal law. Librarians are defenders of the First Amendment and therefore it is necessary to draft policies regarding students rights to freedom of information and privacy for their and the libraries protection. It also recommends that libraries frequently review and update their policies to make sure that new and developing technologies are covered.

Hudson High School Social Networking policy  
Hudson High School of Learning Technologies (02M437)
351 W 18th Street New York, NY 10011  
http://www.hudsonhs.com/social-networking-policy 
I've included this social networking policy as an example of what should not be done. This is a reactionary policy drafted out of fear. From what I gather from the preamble (this was sent as an email to parents of students) the school was having a problem with bullying via Facebook. The school chose to crack down and ban the usage of Facebook rather than educating the students about responsible use. Perhaps their intent is to teach responsiblity and digital citizenship but I can't tell that from the policy. Aside from the reactionary banning of Facebook this policy is also bad because it's called a social networking policy but only addresses the use of Facebook. 

Bishop Lynch 
Ferguson Rd., Dallas, Texas 75228

http://www.bishoplynch.org/netcommunity/page.aspx?pid=1771 
This is an example of a really good social media policy. The first thing they do is to outline why they have a policy, and the purpose and intent of the policy. From the tone, the culture of the school is explicit and the high standard they expect their community to live up to is also very clear. The policy then extends into general community wide expectations and then is further broken down into faculty expectations and student expectations. The document is clear and open and doesn't allow for very much ambiguity. This is a policy I would feel comfortable adopting in my own library.