Update, 2007-07-05: Ken Varnum’s comment on this post indicates that Facebook can change its decision on these kinds of apps with some patient explanation on the library’s part. It’s not clear to me if we can interpret this as a green light, or just a single happy outcome.

[Note: some of the links in this post go to pages that are only available to Facebook members. I identified these links with an "(FB)" immediately following the link. The fact that I have to do this is pertinent to the post itself. -SL]

I did a little messing around with Facebook apps last week. Basically, I downloaded code for the UIUC Facebook library application (FB), used it as the basis for a hasty cut-and-paste job, and managed to get a test version of a working application for my library after a fairly short time. It was very simple, embedding a search for my library’s catalog on the user’s profile page.

I had planned to post some details for those who might want to do the same, and perhaps I will eventually. But recent events make me wonder if that simple application will ever work out.

My colleague, Carol, was going to take my rudimentary application and see if she could add some more features. But she came to me today and said that she had read on on the Facebook group FacebookAppsForLibraries (FB) that libraries were having their apps rejected by Facebook staff.

In a discussion post on that group called Catalog Search Apps Violate FB TOS? Make Your Views Known (FB), Glenn Peterson from Hennepin County Library notes that he:

received a note from FB staff saying the app violated the FB “Platform Application Guidelines” which states “Applications that may be displayed on “user profile” pages or other pages of the Facebook Site…may not include…any web search functionality of any kind.”

He challenges their assertion, as searching a library catalog is different than searching the “web.” Of course, if Facebook’s point is to keep people from driving traffic away from Facebook, they are unlikely to care.

Other libraries have also had their applications turned down upon submitting them to the Facebook application directory, but for different reasons than the ones given to Peterson. Wayne Graham from William & Mary says that the Facebook people said his app “didn’t use the Facebook platform” and David Ward of University of Illinois was told that his app “stores user data beyond the context user session or specified timeout.”

If you want to play along at home and guess the next reason a library application will get rejected, you can consult the Facebook Developer Terms of Service and the Platform Application Guidelines.

So this is all a bit discouraging. But perhaps not too surprising.

Jason Kottke is the latest person to express some skepticism and reservations about Facebook in his posts Facebook is the new AOL and Facebook vs. AOL, redux. His main point is that Facebook might be fun or useful or whatever, but it is still a walled garden set apart from the rest of the web. Search engines don’t index the site, you need an account to view pretty much anything on the site, etc., etc. And if they don’t like what you are doing, they can take their toys back and send you home.

I see how much time some of our students spend on Facebook, and wish that I could encourage them to spend that time making their own web pages. Rather than adding another jokey Facebook group, they could be learning a little HTML and CSS, maybe learning how to install WordPress or something, and making the whole web a more interesting place.

In saying that, I feel like a parallel-universe version of Pope Gorman:

<fakegorman>I fear that today’s student is in thrall to a cyber-Calypso, enjoying the sweet embrace of Facebook, but ultimately leading an empty existence, unaware of his own longing for the intellectual wine-dark sea of the open Internet. One suspects that years of scrawling hip-hop haiku on the aptly-named Facebook ‘Wall’ will leave this generation of students incapable of writing a lengthy, sustained blog post of 300 words or more.</fakegorman>

I’m not ready to give up on Facebook yet. For one thing, it’s fun. (Excuse me while I go poke a half dozen Facebook friends. … Ah, that was fun!) For another, it really is where our users are: the Colorado College network has close to 3,500 people (for a campus with ~ 2,000 current students). The group for the class of incoming students already has 354 members two months before school starts. Now whether these folks really want a Colorado College library application–when that valuable profile space could be taken up with SuperPoke!, Food Fight!, or Booze Mail–who’s to say?

I’m not sure we’ll get a chance to find out.