This document provides an overview of enhancing library services with social media. It discusses what social media is and different types of social media like social bookmarking, social networking, blogs and wikis. The document also addresses why libraries should use social media, how to determine what social media tools are right for a library, content to share, accessibility, tagging, and designing a social media policy. Resources on general social media use and developing a strategy are also included.

1. Enhancing Library Services
with Social Media
SEFLIN Community of Learning
Broward County Library – North Regional
November 8, 2010

2. What is Social Media?
Social = Interaction between people
Media = A tool that facilitates communication of information
Social media = A tool that facilitates communication of information through
human interaction

3. Credit to:
http://www.slideshare.net/megcanada/are-you-a-part-of-the-conversation-1223013

4. Why Libraries?

5. The Thing on the Doorstep:
Libraries & Social Networking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcRbOxNX2UE

6. Types of Social Media
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites
• Social BookmarkingSocial Bookmarking
• Social NewsSocial News
• Social NetworkingSocial Networking
• Social SharingSocial Sharing
• WikisWikis
• BlogsBlogs
• MicroblogsMicroblogs

7. Social Bookmarking
• A way to share favorite websites and view
the favorite websites of others
– Delicious (www.delicious.com)
• http://www.delicious.com/UMHealthSciencesLibraries
– Blinklist (www.blinklist.com)
– Diigo (www.diigo.com)

8. Social News
• A platform for sharing and discussing
news stories
– Digg (www.digg.com)
– Newsvine (www.newsvine.com)
• http://librarian.newsvine.com/
– Reddit (www.reddit.com)

9. Social Networking
• Social networks enable people to
communicate about a wide variety of
topics in open or closed communities
– Facebook (www.facebook.com)
• http://www.facebook.com/westpalmbeachpubliclibrary
– MySpace (www.myspace.com)
– Bebo (www.bebo.com)

10. Social Sharing
• Social sharing sites allow people to share a
specific type of media or information with others
– Goodreads (www.goodreads.com)
• http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1975296-evanston-public-lib
– LibraryThing (www.librarything.com)
– Flickr (www.flickr.com)
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/mycitylibrary/
– YouTube (www.youtube.com)
– Foursquare (www.foursquare.com)
– Gowalla (www.gowalla.com)

11. Wikis
• A wiki is a website with a specific focus
which can be easily edited by a group of
people
– Wikia (www.wikia.com)
• http://delphi-public-library.wikia.com/wiki/Delphi_Public_Library_Wiki
– Wikispaces (www.wikispaces.com – free for
K-12 educators)
– MediaWiki (http://www.mediawiki.org -
software application)

12. Blogs
• Websites, usually maintained by
individuals or small groups, that have a
specific focus and are updated regularly,
in reverse chronological order
– Blogger (www.blogspot.com)
– LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com)
– Wordpress (www.wordpress.com,
www.wordpress.org)
• http://mycitylibrary.wordpress.com

13. Microblogs (aka Tumblelogs)
• Blogs with short updates, usually no more
than 140 characters, a picture, a video, or
a link
– Twitter (www.twitter.com)
• http://twitter.com/MyCityLibrary
– Tumblr (www.tumblr.com)
• http://notwhatyouthink.tumblr.com/

14. What’s Right for Your Library?
• Realistically, how much can you give?
• Know your library’s culture
• How is technology handled at your library?
• Try to find something that fits into your library’s
existing framework
• Where are your patrons?
• Is social media something that will be useful for
your particular library?
• Know when no means “No”, and when no means
“Not right now.”
– Using social media as a professional development
tool

15. Online Social Media
Marketing @ APL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L56vMNyw1zk

16. Tagging
• Retrieval, retrieval, retrieval!
• Not all social media sites support tagging,
but when they do….DO!
• You can (almost) never have too many
tags.

17. Tagging
Image Title: Wine Glass Painting - 6/25/2009

18. Tagging

19. Tagging

20. Accessibility
• Web
– Most popular way of accessing social media
– Full functionality
• Desktop (ex. Hootsuite, Seesmic)
– Not available for all, but for many
– Can bring together several social media tools in one
place
– Functionality may be full or limited
• Mobile
– Not available for all, but for many
– Usually bare bones functionality
– Can be great for librarians who move around a lot, or
for updating from library programs
– Must have an Internet-enabled handheld device

21. Social Media Content
Think outside the box!
Contests
Library Events
Book Reviews
Book Lists
YouTube Videos
Library News
Quotes
Foursquare “mayorships”
Scavenger Hunts

22. Social Media Success
• Reaching
• Promoting
• Interacting
• Maintenance

23. Reaching
• Target Audience = The Public
– Tech-savvy? Luddites?
– Follow to Be Followed! (Depending on
platform)
– Advertise offline
• Know Your Resources (and
Communicate with Them!)
– Governmental
– Tourism

24. Promoting
• Know Your Community: Library as Virtual
Community Center
– What events are going on?
• Library Programs
• Institutional Programs
– What interests your patrons?
– Think beyond the library building
• Promote Your Community!
– Public Resources vs. Private Businesses

25. Interacting
• Timeliness
• Appropriateness
• Legality
– Sunshine Law

26. Maintenance
• Depends on the type of website
– Twitter: @’s, DMs, Friends
– Facebook: Replies
– Delicious: Link Validity
• Ranges from daily to monthly

27. The Rules of Social Media
Murphy’s Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.
Always have a backup method of communication!
• http://mashable.com/2010/06/15/twitter-errors-and-downtime-likely-to-continue/
• http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/23/facebook-downtime/
• http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/25/yes-youtube-is-down-but-you-can-still-watch-video
The only thing constant is change.
• http://www.businessinsider.com/new-facebook-groupsthumbs-down-2010-10
• http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/08/facebook-image-viewer/
• http://erictric.com/2010/10/13/facebook-redesign-possibly-rolling-out-slowly/
• http://mashable.com/2010/10/13/new-twitter-finished/
• http://mashable.com/2010/10/06/twitter-lucene/

28. Designing a Social Media Policy
Two types
• Professional Policy Document (Behavior)
– Institution-wide
• Focus Document (End Product)
– Department-wide
• Don’t reinvent the wheel
• Check to see if one is already in place

29. Who – audience
Depending on your library, your audience may be large or small, homogenous
or varied. Your audience may consist of undergraduates, postgraduates,
academic staff, alumni, library staff, external visitors, the media, tourists and
a range of random other people. These segments of your audience may be
seeking different information from you.
Designing a Social Media Policy
Credit to: http://darkarchive.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/social-media-strategy/

30. Designing a Social Media Policy
What – content
In terms of content, here are some ideas for what you would like to publish:
• Library location, opening times, lending rules, library guides
• New titles acquired by the library
• Events in the library
• Changes to opening hours
• Reminders e.g. return books before end of term
• Changes to staffing or procedures
• Advertising other events in your organization e.g. lectures, training, other
news stories
• Building/maintenance work, or other disruption to normal services
• User education – include snippets of advice on info issues
• Emergencies e.g. many libraries could not open as usual earlier this year
because of snow- or ash cloud-related disruption. These updates made it
onto Twitter and Facebook much faster than onto official library webpages
You could run a series of posts e.g. tip of the week, staff book
recommendations. It helps to plan your content ahead of time so that even
if it’s a slow week on the news front, you still have something to post about.
Credit to: http://darkarchive.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/social-media-strategy/

31. Designing a Social Media Policy
Where – tools
There are many social media tools available. Some of the most well-
known are Facebook, Twitter, blogging (e.g. Blogger, WordPress),
Flickr, LibraryThing, social bookmarking (e.g. Delicious).
Next, you need to decide which social media sites work well for the content
and audiences you have identified for your library. For example,
interactions on Facebook tend to be mutual, and are more intimate than
those on Twitter. For a college library like mine, where there is a strong
sense of community, Facebook is likely to work well. However,
because Twitter is a more open community, it works well for reaching
external users. Regarding content, if you want to involve pictures in
your strategy, Flickr will be much more useful to you than LibraryThing.
But if you have a lot of links to share, a social bookmarking tool such as
Delicious might be perfect for you.
Credit to: http://darkarchive.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/social-media-strategy/

32. Resources - General
• http://webtrends.about.com/od/web20/a/social-media.htm?p=1
• http://webtrends.about.com/od/gettingstarted/ss/socialwebguide.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites
• http://www.slideshare.net/megcanada/who-is-doing-this-stuff-well
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L56vMNyw1zk – Abilene Public
Library
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcRbOxNX2UE – Chartered
Institute of Library and Information Professionals (UK) - Multimedia
Information and Technology Group

33. Resources - General
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy2q-hq8wF0 - Library 2.0 Panel
1, Part 1: The Future of the Library (Yale University)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JloZK8wTqQ - Library 2.0 Panel
1, Part 2: The Future of the Library (Yale University)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjHrXVptRJA - Library 2.0 Panel
2, Part 1: Ethics and Politics of Library 2.0 (Yale University)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xhfhazHTjM - Library 2.0 Panel
2, Part 2: Ethics and Politics of Library 2.0 (Yale University)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBLZpXOMVhI - Library 2.0 Panel
2, Part 3: Ethics and Politics of Library 2.0 (Yale University)

34. Resources - General
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BgnSfIzLmk - Social Networking:
Is It for You? Pt 1
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWhVogaL1d4 – Social
Networking: Is It for You? Pt 2
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5W0AyGptHE – Social
Networking: Is It for You? Pt 3
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUb4DL7avoM – Social
Networking: Is It for You? Pt 4
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAXSTpH8b4Y – Social
Networking: Is It for You? Pt 5
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsmmHwfQZ7g – Social
Networking: Is It for You? Pt 6
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2l59xyny0o – Social
Networking: Is It for You? Pt 7
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5sH09VT6pU - Social
Networking: Is It for You? Pt 8

35. Resources – Social Media Policy
• http://librariansmatter.com/blog/2010/09/10/a-social-m
• http://mashable.com/2009/04/27/social-media-
policy/
• http://mashable.com/2009/06/02/social-media-
policy-musts/
• http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA66
99104.html
• http://darkarchive.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/so
cial-media-strategy/

36. Resources - Downtime
• http://mashable.com/2010/06/15/twitter-errors-
• http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/23/faceboo
k-downtime/
• http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/25/yes-
youtube-is-down-but-you-can-still-watch-
videos/

37. Resources - Redesign
• http://www.businessinsider.com/new-facebook-
groupsthumbs-down-2010-10
• http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/08/facebook-
image-viewer/
• http://erictric.com/2010/10/13/facebook-
redesign-possibly-rolling-out-slowly/
• http://mashable.com/2010/10/13/new-twitter-
finished/
• http://mashable.com/2010/10/06/twitter-lucene/