Social Software in
Libraries
Meredith Farkas
Norwich University

Web 1.0: Democratized
Access to Information

Web 2.0: Democratized
Participation

Social Software
My definition: A tool must meet at least
two of the following conditions:
1. It allows people to communicate,
collaborate and build community
online
2. It can be syndicated, shared, reused
or remixed, or it facilitates syndication
3. It allows people to easily learn
from and capitalize on the behavior or
knowledge of others.

Social software
Trends for
Libraries

Use social tools
to Highlight
Collections

Create Community
around
Collections

Collect and
Disseminate
Knowledge

Go Where our
Users Are

Have transparent
conversations
with our users

Improve internal
knowledge
sharing

Communicate with
users at the point
of need

Strategies for
implementing
social software

Know your users

Develop a risk-
tolerant culture

Develop a
learning culture

Involve staff at
all levels in
planning

Capitalize on your
network

Time must be
devoted to this

Questions?
mgfarkas at gmail
librarianmer at Twitter, FriendFeed,
Flickr, AIM, etc.