Over the past many months I’ve been thinking alot about how libraries can use text messaging with teens. There are some models in which libraries send various types of notices to patrons via text message, but that never seemed to me to harness the technology in the way that it should be harnessed. Then a couple of weeks ago I heard about Air Baruch, a new service that’s being implemented by Baruch College and I thought to myself, “this is going to be really cool.”
Then, just a few minutes ago in my RSS feed for the search social networking and libraries at Google, I saw a press release on Air Baruch and I thought “this really is cool.” What a great way to get information out to students of any age. What a great way to push information to patrons of any age. Of course many teens are never without their cell phones. (Except when their schools and libraries don’t allow them to use them.) But, this actually points to the need to re-think those bans on cell phones in libraries and classrooms.
Start to think what you might push to the teens you work with if you were able to connect with them where they are – on their phones! The possibilities are pretty incredible. What do readers have in mind?
