I don’t think MPOW is alone in debating how much we should moderate customer-generated content. We recently developed a website for teen library users, and one of the features we wanted to be most prominent was the ability to allow teens who registered for the site to contribute reviews, blog posts, and other entries, with the hope that this would inspire teens to contribute and become part of the community. We’re still wrestling with this idea, primarily because we haven’t quite been able to resolve our desire to collect user generated content with our need for secure servers.
The University of British Columbia has developed a site that allows students, potential students, faculty and staff to speak their mind about what kinds of problems they want the University to solve. Called A Place of Mind, the site is very well done, easy to navigate, and allows visitors to add their opinions; users need only provide their name and email address to contribute. Have a look at the content that is currently featured in the Shoutbox:
spambots in the shoutbox
If your library is considering letting users add content to your website – whether that content takes the shape of comments, a shout box, or blog posts, I think it is essential that your organization appoint a community manager to monitor the discussions on the site. Otherwise, you might end up with spammers in your shoutbox.
EDIT: You might also want to make sure you have content in your Twitter feed if you’re going to publicize it on the front page of your site.
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