Why should libraries be socially networking?

For some reason, writing the talk about tech support in libraries has been making me think about libraries on social networks again. Maybe it’s the little push of friends I get on Facebook after I give a talk to a new group of people. Maybe it’s because I had to explain yet again that I think it’s worth powering through bad design and usability in order to have presence in a place where your users are or might be. Maybe it’s because social software seems like a free and easy way to give your library a human face on the larger Internet. Maybe it’s because after being at SXSW I just see social software as the default way to be on the web and so libraries that are moving forward with blogging and other web tools may as well expand into using social tools as well. This has nothing to do with 2.0 anything, although I guess you could see it that way.

So, to that end, I’m making a small list of ways that I think libraries and librarians can use thse tools to further the existing missions of their institutions. It’s nothing new, but I’ve been pondering it lately and I think specifics, and links to examples can he helpful. Feel free to add more in the comments.

  • Get your library a Flickr account. These accounts are now nearly free through a collaboration between Flickr and TechSoup. TechSoup has an article about how nonprofits can use Flickr. My advice: free image hosting and easy image uploading for staff. Consider uploading some historical photos that you can share with the people in you community. Check out what the Library of Congress has been doing and how much tagging and commenting is happening on their photos. It’s like a Letters to the Editor section for you archival photos. I use this photo quite a lot on my photoshop class, teaching people how to edit pictures.
  • Anyone can get an account on Facebook. Facebook now has the ability for businesses and organizations to create “pages” (as opposed to profiles) where you can put information about your organization. You can see a few library pages here: NASA Glenn Technical Library, Iowa City Public Library, The National Library of Scotland. You can click here to create your own organization page. For people who are already on Facebook, which includes a huge percentage of high school and college age people, they can become “fan” of your organization which means they will get your updates. If you already have a blog, you can set your Facebook page to automatically read and republish your RSS feed inside Facebook. I do this with my personal blog so people who are my friends on Facebook can read my blog updates. The same way Google really let us get information out of the web, people are searching their networks on Facebook sometimes before Google.
  • If you’re a librarian, think about getting on Twitter. You can read this post for background information about Twitter or this Library Journal article for more information about messaging services generally. This is not so much, as I see it, to communicate with patrons but to do two things. 1. create a short pithy easy to update RSS feed of news or information or links that you can repurpose to put on your blog, website, Facebook profile or elsewhere. 2. communicate with librarians who are on twitter in droves. When I was creating my talk I asked a question, literally hurled it out there into the aether, and got back seven or either useful responses within about an hour. That’s ready reference.
  • Added later: think about a 23 Things type project. Vermont is doing this. It’s an easy way to give staff a casual fun exposture to a lot of social tools and let them see for themselves what they’re good for. Offer continuing ed credits or other fun incentives. The set-up costs and investments are nearly nothing and the ongoing investment is mostly time. One of the things I hear all the time is that staff are interested in new technologies generally but lack the time to explore and so get technostressed because they feel that they’re jumping in to some very public online activities without feeling competent in what they’re doing or what they’re there for. a 23 Things project can help that immensely.

The reason I think it’s important to show good examples and best paractices is because we’re still dealing with libraries like Mishawaka Library which thinks that blocking social software sites in their library because they can’t manage unruly teens is some sort of solution to a problem. I’m not saying there aren’t problems surrounding public computer and internet use in libraries generally, maybe there are even sometimes problems with teens, but really responding to the problem by blocking wide swaths of the Internet is not really going to help anyone understand the problem better. It just makes libraries look hostile and librarians look reactive. I’m sure there’s a larger post here about dealing with teens + comptuers + internet + understaffing + the fear factor of unknown online socializing, but I feel that it’s all of our responsbility as online community members of various stripes, to provide positive examples of social software online. This is mine.

9 thoughts on “Why should libraries be socially networking?

  1. Don’t forget about YouTube. Everyone thinks of it as a forum for raunchy videos and downloads from last week’s SNL episode but it is so much more! It is a great way of getting exposure and getting the community involved.

    Don’t have any technical experience, advertise to the local high-schools and run a contest for the based student-made video. I bet you’ll get more great videos than you’ll know what to do with. You could even rotate the content on your website for the top 3 or 4 videos. Most students would be willing to do this as a way to “beef-up” their college resumes but you should be able to get a local business sponsor some kind of prize.

    Obviously you’ll need some kind of content guidelines: length, focus, format and rating. Other than that, I say let the kids do what they want and have fun. So often libraries aren’t looked at as fun, something like this change that!

  2. I read your post and made a facebook page for the library i work for. I suppose now I have to post updates to make it worthwhile.

  3. terrific “why for” post, jessamyn. there’s all sorts of why-you-should-web-2.0 this n’ that in blogland, but this post yanked it all together and offered a good reason why and how libraries small and big should tune in. nice.

  4. I always thought a World of Warcraft Librarians Guild doing homework help out of Stormwind or Ogrimaar would be an excellent source for teen outreach. There are literally ‘hordes’ (ha!) of 12-21 year olds playing WoW every night, most likely when they should be doing homework.

    Sadly, everyone seems to be focusing on providing virtual services through Second Life, which is populated largely by middle-agers and euros. WoW has a youthful (and growing) population that could be harnessed as future library users.

  5. Many of my colleagues think I’m crazy for having yet another place to check e-mail, waste time, etc…or they just don’t have the time to do it. I’ve found it to be nothing but a goldmine of networking and realize that our students are there ALL the time. Thanks for the links!! and blogging!!I just friended you by the way. :)

  6. Thanks for featuring us on your blog (NASA Glenn Technical Library) it is so hard to implement new things sometimes that recognition goes a long way! Also to your commenter SovietBear – I’m on board with WoW Librarians!!! Undermine server pst Aellyn :)

  7. The article on WebJunction about social networking was great for imaging all the ways they could be used in the library. I was already a big user of WebJunction and use it all the time! It’s such a great site for sharing anything from library policies to programming flyers, not to mention articles and discussions.

Comments are closed.