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The Future of Librarianship: Information Literacy, Usage and Engaging Your Users
Kate Shanahan discusses how librarians can engage users through information literacy, maximizing usage of library resources, and engaging users. She provides tips on using social media to promote library collections and events. Taylor & Francis offers resources like guides, workshops, and white papers to help with collection promotion, social media strategy, and facilitating access to free content.
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The Future of Librarianship: Information Literacy, Usage and Engaging Your Users
- 1. The Future of Librarianship KateShanahan Regional Marketing Executive, EMEA Information literacy, usage and engaging your users
- 2. Regional Marketing Support librariesglobally to • Promote their purchased content • Engage users • Access product training • Co-host library and researcher events • Collaborate on conference papers • And much more!
- 3. Overview • Information literacy •Maximising usage • Engaging your users • How Taylor & Francis can help
- 4. Information Literacy • Locate •Evaluate • Manage and share findings
- 5. Locating content Educationon where to look for content Collaborative approach to collection development Subject-specific libguides Subject librarian Acquisition / e-resource librarian Student Faculty Library content
- 6. Evaluating content Educatingfaculty and students Understanding quality
- 7. Library & faculty working collaboratively Building relationships Integrating the library with academic programmes
- 8.
- 9. Facilitating access to free content •Growth and value of content - Free resources add value! • Identification and selection of content - growing volume of material a challenge • Resource challenges for libraries - librarians have a limited human resource “Our main challenge is human resources for selection decisions.” - Technical Services Librarian, USA
- 10. Facilitating access to freecontent • Library role - Librarians’ role needs better promotion • Users’ needs and expectations - Library systems need to become faster Do you have a process for facilitating access to free content in your library?
- 11.
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- 13. Maximising usage • Movefrom print to electronic • Digitising archival content • ‘Open’ content • Mobile access • Social media There has been many changes to the academic library landscape! How has this impacted you?
- 14. • Discoverability • Accessibility •Promoting your content through the ‘right’ channels - where can you most effectively engage with your users? Maximising usage
- 15. Mobile use 1% 6% 1% 7% 17% 37% 31% Approximately,how often do you use a mobile device for academic scholarly content: Never Less than once a month Once a month Two or three times a month Once a week Several times a week Every day Do you have a mobile strategy in your library?
- 16. 24/7 access tocontent 3%3% 16% 39% 39% Please state how important is it for you to access your institutional library holdings offsite on a mobile device: Not at all important Low importance Average High importance Extremely important “Having access to content outside the library creates more time for browsing and finding relevant information for research and teaching. If I see an article that relates to the content that I have taught, I can instantly share it with my classes.”
- 17. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Searching for academic scholarlycontent Reading online journal articles Downloading academic scholarly content to be read later For reading lists Responses What do you use your mobile device for? Please tick all that apply: What do you use your mobile device for?
- 18. Mobile Features 2 3 4 7 22 4 7 21 15 30 9 32 34 44 35 37 37 55 46 33 40 26 76 32 31 22 27 10 0% 20%40% 60% 80% 100% Search functionality Journal browse Saving to favourites Also Read (allows you to view a list of articles other readers of this article have read) Share an article via email Share an article via social media How important are the following features in a mobile app? Not at all important Low importance Average High importance Extremely important
- 19. Taylor & Francis OnlineMobile
- 20. Engaging your users • Marketingyour library • Social media white paper
- 21. Marketing your library •Publishers’ resources – tell us what support you need! • User guides • Video training content
- 22. Using social mediato engage your users
- 23. Uses for socialmedia channels Customer service Distribute news and information Competitions Build connectionsArrange events Engage with students Share photographs Provide instructions Promote library collections Develop communities
- 24. Top 5 usesfor social media in the library 1. Events promotion 76% 2. Library Services Promotion 72% 3. Resources/collections promotion 70% 4. Library refurbishment updates 63% 5. Promotion of new acquisitions 61%
- 25. 5 least popularuses for social media in the library 1. Highlighting subject specific information 38% 2. Connecting with potential students 34% 3. As a teaching tool to promote information literacy 25% 4. To promote courses 22% 5. As a research tool to locate official documents 21%
- 27. Customer Service • Oneof the most common uses of social media is to deliver customer service • Librarians reported declining use of websites to deliver customer services information • Challenge for librarians is responding in a timely fashion, as users expect quick answers
- 28. Driving user engagement Social mediahas the potential to help create and build strongly connected communities One of the opportunities with social media is listening to your community… I think that’s primarily why we have a Twitter account, and we have also claimed our Foursquare location, so we can listen and monitor. That’s yielded some pretty positive reviews and results.
- 29. Case study: using GoSoapBoxto drive user engagement • Polling software GoSoapBox was used to encourage interaction with students • A button was added to Blackboard to enable users to post ideas which could then be voted on • Encouraged interaction along with a sense of co-responsibility/ownership of issues and opportunities http://www.gosoapbox.com
- 30. Driving user engagement: toptips • Use imagery to communicate ideas quickly • Address issues important to your users • Post a variety of messages
- 31. Collection Promotion • Activitiesusing social media to encourage usage of collections are diverse and unstructured • Challenging to provide tailored communications to users with niche interests • Listening is felt to be as important as broadcasting The results found that promoting the library’s collection was within the top 3 objectives for using social media.
- 32. Collection promotion: top tips •Integrate channels • Introduce regular posts, e.g. Information Literacy Friday • Focus on an interesting angle to pique curiosity
- 33. How can Taylor& Francis help? User guides Platform training workshops Promotional collateral Video content Taylor & Francis Online Mobile White papers – social media and free content Author & researcher seminars
- 34.
Editor's Notes
- #3 * I make up part of a global regional marketing team & based in our Oxford offices * We each cover different territories worldwide and we work with academic and corporate libraries in a number of ways: - helping them get the most from their content - promote their content within their institution - and hosting different events * While I am based out of Oxford, my region is Southern Europe which includes Italy.
- #4 This is a one hour session which will explore how your role as a librarian and teacher of information literacy is developing. * It will offer practical advice drawn from experiences of librarians from around the world. * And it will focus on how you can ensure that your library’s content is used to its full potential, and that your students and researchers continue to engage with the library. * Finally I will look at how Taylor & Francis can help support you with this. * Each section will be supported by case studies, white papers and research surveys. * I will present for around 45 minutes and then have time for discussions at the end.
- #5 * Let’s start off with information literacy which is defined as locating, evaluating and managing information. * Educating the different faculties and students around this is now an increasing role of the library. * The information in this section is taken from real experiences from libraries we have worked with around the world, and a research paper Taylor & Francis produced which explores the library’s role in facilitating access to free content.
- #6 * Firstly, let’s look at locating content. * Feedback from many institutions we work with has shown that library users are often hesitant to look for content if they don’t know where to start * It is important that they know help is available through the library. Some of you might have an education program in your library and this is a great place to start * Many libraries we work with, run inductions for new students and faculty members, however sometimes there is no formal ongoing support or training. * It has been shown that information literacy can be improved by running regular sessions throughout the year - eg weekly or monthly drop in sessions, online tutorials. * Marketing the library services through webpages, social media & posters around the library are all good ways to encourage patrons to approach you for help in discovering content. Collaborative approach should be taken amongst the different library roles in regards to collection development. * New content should be promoted to the rest of the library team eg. If acquisition librarian has purchased new subscription, should work with relevant subject librarian to ensure awareness. * New content should be promoted to library users. Assets like subject-specific guides can be useful for helping users know what to look for in their particular subject area. * Discoverability is obviously really important when talking about locating information and I will look at this in more depth when we go on to talk about maximising usage
- #7 How can we start to educate faculty and students on if content is reliable? * Often the library is involved in educating on key issues like copyright, plagiarism and the general reliability of different information sources. * As you would know it is important that the library and the faculties in your institution work together to provide guidance on evaluating content For example is this research valid and credible? How can you tell? * One thing a number of libraries have done is to run information literacy classes, often in conjunction a faculty is a way to formalise this training. * These classes can provide clear pointers for students on where they should be looking for academic content and what signs will identify poor quality content.
- #8 * Benefits of the library and faculty working together were highlighted in the experiences of a institution in the US. * They sought to strengthen their relationships with the faculties in order to address information literacy as part of the University’s Quality Enhancement Plan and had significant success. The library established relationships with faculty through: Running inductions for new faculty members to show how they could work with the library attending meetings when the professors and faculty were redeveloping academic programmes Joining up with faculty to provide information literacy courses for specific subject areas Engagement when purchasing texts, encouraging faculties to go through the library instead of university bookstore The development of case studies to show how useful the library can be to faculty when developing courses in conjunction. Perhaps these are things you are already doing? Or they may be ideas that could be easily implemented in your own libraries.
- #9 We will now focus on a growing area of importance in the area of information literacy. This is finding and evaluating freely available content on the internet. The volume of freely available online resources continues to grow exponentially – information literacy has ‘left the library’ and there is a need to equip users to deal with his new digital world. Potentially, many of these resources are very valuable for teaching, learning and research purposes. However, finding, evaluating and facilitating access to this content brings with it many challenges, for both librarians and their user communities. At Taylor & Francis we conducted a research study to help explore the issues relating to free content from the perspective of librarians. Research was carried out though - focus groups - telephone interviews - an online survey - desk research.
- #10 Here is a bit of an overview of our findings: Growth and value of free content • Librarians and faculty members surveyed agreed that free online resources add value to the research process. • Majority believed that free online content is likely to become at least as important as paid-for content in the future • Those surveyed also saw value in a range of free online resources, from traditional (e.g. Open Access journals) through to user-generated content such as blogs, podcasts and videos. Identification and selection of content • Factors that matter most to those surveyed when deciding what free content to make discoverable were: the relevance to curriculum or research programme, reputation of publisher, and reputation of the list or index • The key challenges for librarians relating to making free resources more discoverable include the growing volume of material, unknown permanence and difficulties relating to quality-assessment. Resource challenges for libraries – Refer to slide quote • Limited human resource available to select and catalogue free online resources. • The main challenge is the huge volume of resources available and lack of staff to properly evaluate them. • However, the majority believed it would benefit their institutions to invest more in surfacing free content. • The survey did bring up a suggestion to tackle this issue: Faculties and library users could become partners with librarians in selecting appropriate free content for surfacing within an institution. • A clear criteria would be needed to ensure consistency of approach.
- #11 Library role • The research showed a gap in perceptions of librarian’s day-to-day work. • They are spending their time on collating free content, but are seen by faculty mainly as ‘purchasers of content’. • So their role of enhancing discoverability of free content and integrating it with paid content needs to be better promoted and developed. • A particular challenge relating to this will be proving the return on investment of that effort. User needs and expectations • Almost 50% of respondents currently index free content in the library catalogue, and just over 40% incorporate it in federated and discovery tools. • Library discoverability systems need to become faster and more user-friendly • Need for more comprehensive coverage of resources beyond the library’s own paid-for collection.
- #12 So just finally to share another graph from the research – here is how the majority of librarians surveyed made free online content visible to users.
- #13 Graph taken from the white paper which explores who’s responsibility it is to facilitate discovery of free online content. • It showed that the surveyed librarians felt well placed to provide the expertise in selecting appropriate resources and making them discoverable and they felt they should have primary responsibility for this. • This was supported by the finding that 94% of librarians already help their users find free online content. • However, we can see that responsibility for facilitating discovery of free online content within an institution is still seen to be widely distributed with: - 87% of responding librarians seeing faculty as having some level of responsibility - 72% seeing other users as also having some level of responsibility. So again supporting the earlier discussion there may be a need for a collaborative approach. I would be really keen to hear your thoughts on this in our discussion at the end. Do you have a process for facilitating access to free content in your library and how do you manage this?
- #14 So we have talked about information literacy but let’s now move onto the second topic of today: maximising usage of library information resources. In line with the changing landscape of academic libraries, publishing has changed a lot over the last decade including: • Making the shift from print to electronic through online publishing. • The movement towards digitizing archival content • The phenomena of open content which has enhanced discoverability • Making content accessible via mobile • And the use of social media to promote content. All of these trends have had a big impact on how libraries can work to maximise the use of their content.
- #15 When looking at maximising usage we can break it down into three areas. Discoverability – which includes indexing, cataloguing and a library’s search capabilities. • Ensuring that your library holdings are easily discoverable to users, wherever they choose to access content, is key to ensuring usage is maximised. • Changed with the rise of mobile devices which we will go on to look at Accessibility – when and where your users can access content Promotion – I’ve asked the question up on the slide where can you most effectively engage with your users. • What is working in your library currently and what would you like to improve on? • And how can you reach users in ways that engage them to promote relevant content? • For example are you making the most of the library website, online blackboards or shared online group spaces and social media. - Knowing where to reach your users and identifying the right channels that they respond to is key in being able to ensure maximum usage. In this section we will focus on accessibility, looking in particular at mobile access, then go on to look in more depth at how you can promote user engagement, particularly through social media.
- #16 So I want to explore the growing area of mobile use which is a huge area now affecting libraries - This includes mobile phones, ipads and tablets. Taylor and Francis carried out a research survey into mobile use in the library and our research objectives were: • To understand how individuals use mobiles in an academic and library setting • To determine how publishers can help with discovery in the library through mobile use • To know what mobile functionality is important and adds value Whilst we can’t cover all of this in this session, we will take a look at mobiles as discovery enhancers and for accessing content for all user needs. • Looking at the graph here, the results indicate the overwhelming use of mobile for accessing content. • 85% of people use their mobile devices at least once a week, highlighting the importance for publishers and librarians to make their content accessible through this avenue. I hope that sharing these results will help for you to think about how they might represent your own library users and how knowing this information might influence the mobile strategy in your library.
- #17 Now I was surprised by this fact: 78% of respondents to the survey stated how important it is that they have access to their libraries content off site through their mobile devices. Only 6% of individuals felt that it was of low or no importance. Some feedback from one respondent…(read from slide) • This shows that in user’s minds the library is also becoming mobile in nature. It’s not just a physical location anymore. • Social sharing via mobile devices opens up usage potential enormously – we can see just in the example here the academic has found the information which now lots of students will access. • Through sharing content one user might fulfil many user’s needs or expectations. • So social sharing can help maximise the use of the library’s holdings.
- #18 The research also explored what are library users were using their devices for. The research found that mobile devices are being used for multiple purposes in the library including: • reading lists • downloading content that they have found to be read later • searching for and reading online content The results highlight how people are using it for more than one reason; fulfilling more than one need. When planning your own mobile strategies or perhaps, justifying a need for a mobile strategy in your library; knowing of multiple benefits may be very influential in seeing this policy and strategy realised. Perhaps you could conduct your own survey to see if these results are reflective of your own libraries needs?
- #19 This slide I find really interesting: what features are important in mobile apps for accessing academic content? • Search functionality was clearly seen as the most important feature with only 1% feeling it was ‘not at all important’. • 92% of people thought it was of high or extreme importance to a mobile; showcasing how mobile is very much a discovery enhancer tool. • Other functions related to searching for content were also seen as priority, with ‘journal browsing’ ranked second in importance, and ‘saving to favourites’ third in importance. • When we look at ‘Extra functionalities’ such as ‘also read’, and sharing of articles via email and social media, there is also interest, but the primary functionality noted of importance is being able to discover content.
- #20 Taylor & Francis Online has a user interface which is mobile compatible and we are pleased to be able to say includes the functionality noted here. • I didn’t want to focus on the Taylor & Francis offering today, but one of the reasons this particular survey was run was so that we could ensure our mobile optimization was in-line with what users wanted. • On visiting Taylor & Francis online from a mobile device, users are automatically taken to the Taylor & Francis Mobile web app. So they don’t need to go to an app store to obtain the mobile version. • Users are also able to pair their device with TFO whether working on or offsite allowing access 24/7 to the library holdings. • There are some materials on TFO mobile and pairing your phone on TFO and YouTube if you’re interested, and if you have any feedback or comments please email me, I’ll be putting my email address up at the end. Moving away from this though, I hope this survey has shown is the importance of mobile technology for end users in discovering content, and I hope it shows the importance of having a mobile policy in libraries which enables your users to gain access to important content when they need it. * From this information you might want to consider mobile solutions for your own library – does you library have it’s own app, or could you look at publisher’s own ones and whether these fulfil your user needs. 55% of people rated the functionality of sharing an article via email as of high or extreme importance so perhaps you could look to build this into your offering?
- #21 So here we move on to the final topic of the presentation: How can you improve engagement with your users? • In this part I will focusing specifically on the white paper produced by Taylor & Francis on use of social media by the library. Which is included in your delegate bags.
- #22 Librarians have to fulfil many roles as part of their job. Marketing the library services is increasingly needed in order to engage with users. • Publishers (like Taylor and Francis) can supply you to promote your content. This might include posters, leaflets and guides. • We can also provide in person platform training for librarians, and you could do the same for you users - This is a great opportunity to engage with them and build awareness of the library resources and how to get the most from them. • During a European library event we discussed the best way to provide training to users, and it was agreed that a format which allows them to access it whenever they need, rather than restricting them to a specific session or time is important. • Reaching your users at a time when they want to interact is crucial in engaging them successfully. Eg. Online YouTube training videos, recorded webinars hosted on the library website. Thinking about how and where you target your marketing is key – get creative and try new things, but know your audience! • Newly enrolled students – social media, or with posters in university accommodation, with light-hearted messaging raising awareness of the basic library services. • You might want to tailor the message when addressing faculty. Ensuring that content marketing is subject specific (again, working with faculty) to connect in a relevant way with users. eg. Developing subject specific posters in the teaching rooms used by that faculty. Interacting via social media is a growing phenomenon and one we will look at more closely now.
- #23 So here is the white paper that is in your packs today. • Social media has the potential to facilitate much closer relationships between libraries and their customers. • Current usage remains ad hoc and somewhat experimental, but the use of social media tools is accelerating and they are likely to play an increasingly important role in library service provision. Taylor & Francis has undertaken the research to provide an overview of current practices from which individual institutions can benchmark their own activities and be inspired to try new approaches. Focus groups in the UK, USA & India 10 telephone interviews Twitter party (73 registrants, one hour long) Online survey Desk research
- #24 We looked more closely at how libraries were using social media for specific tasks, and which channels they felt best served a specific purpose. • These can be loosely grouped into a number of key areas which are shown here. Eg. customer service…collection development…providing instructions. • We will look at a couple of these areas more closely in a minute. As we explore how librarians are making use of their social media channels.
- #25 We asked librarians to rate how important Social Media is to achieve a set of objectives in their library. • The results indicate that social media is primarily being used by libraries to fulfil marketing and promotional objectives, whether that be the promotion of events, collections or services. • However, engagement with faculty and students is not far behind in terms of priorities.
- #26 At the other end of the spectrum, using social media in a teaching or learning capacity is a much lower priority currently; the three lowest scoring objectives were: (a) using social media as a teaching tool, (b) as a tool for promoting courses (c) as a research/discovery tool to find relevant materials Here is an example of where our themes today cross over – why not use social media more? – There is no reason why social media cannot be used for these purposes! Going back to an earlier topic – why not use social media as a teaching tool - for example to promote or run information literacy workshops?
- #27 The social media channels most frequently mentioned by our focus groups and in our phone interviews were Twitter and Facebook • Facebook was identified as key for engaging with students. • Twitter is felt to be more effective for communicating with researchers and other institutions. • Blogs are used for sharing information and news. • YouTube was cited as being useful for providing instructional information, such as platform training, or advice on open access publishing for researchers, and for collection management. We’ll now go on to look more closely at a couple of case studies and top tips in some key areas: customer service, driving user engagement and collection promotion.
- #28 Using social media as a customer service tool was frequently cited across our research; you can see some example quotes from survey respondents alongside the image here. • Institutions in our focus groups reported declining usage of websites for accessing library service information, with some suggesting that these pages were now used primarily by external audiences. • It was felt that social media – because of its immediacy, was a better way to provide ongoing updates of information that was changing with any degree of frequency. • A key challenge relating to customer service via social media is responding in a timely fashion, as users expect quick answers to their questions, whatever the time or day of the week. - Train company in UK alerts users when they are on-offline for the day.
- #29 Over time, social media can help create central communities which are strongly linked and have an influential voice. • This idea of listening to the user base can be a passive process, by reading and responding to people who have engaged with your channel, • Or an active one, where librarians are actively polling their users, as is the case in the next example:
- #30 One institution in the UK used polling software from a company called GoSoapBox to encourage interaction with students. - GoSoapBox is web-based tool used by educators around the world to keep students engaged and gain real-time insights. • All input was welcomed, whether it be ideas, suggestions for change or complaints. • Other users could then vote for their favourite idea so that the most popular suggestions become most visible on the site. • The most popular ideas were put forward each month to senior managers, who reviewed and decided which resulting action to take. • A senior manager also provided a commentary on why the decision has been made so that users are provided with a rationale behind the decision making process. The institution found the feedback they sourced through this medium invaluable. They particularly welcomed student complaints as it enabled the institution to move forward and improve. It enabled people across the whole institution to work together to solve problems. Could something similar work in your library?
- #31 So here are some other top tips we took from the survey: 1) Did you know we can process images up to 60,000 times faster than text? An image can be used to convey a message far more effectively than text and will grab the attention of the user base • It has been proven that tweets that include images result in increased engagement – which includes clicks and retweets In our telephone interviews, several librarians shared their experiences of using visual social media channels such as Instagram to share images and inspire engagement with users. One US library posted pictures of library buildings along with corresponding interesting facts • The students were highly receptive to this, being motivated to comment on the original post and go on to share their own pictures. In turn, they found that the number of likes to their channel dramatically increased. 2) Engage with users on topics that matter to them – one librarian commented that they look out for events which were important to their students, eg. exam week, and enter the conversation to offer their support. - This type of initiative adds a more human element to the social media channel, and demonstrates an open and receptive approach. 3) Variety is key when it comes to keeping users interested – maintain a mix of more informative messages with informal observations, opinion pieces or questions. One US library posted a daily diary of one of their first alumna from 1873, which received a good amount of attention.
- #32 Social media is regularly used to promote collections, particularly core databases, but current activities are diverse and often lack structure. • From the results of the survey, promoting the library ‘s collection was within the top 3 objectives for using social media. • A key challenge, however, was found to be the niche interest of library users - makes it difficult to put together tailored communications. • One suggestion was to work more closely with subject experts in using social media to engage with users with relevant content. • This will help you find out what social media platforms and channels are best to interact with those specific users. • Social media was recognised as having potential to encourage dialogue with users, providing opportunities for collection development. • It was also frequently cited as a powerful collection management tool, both for hosting resources and transforming digital cataloguing. • However, listening was felt to be as important as broadcasting.
- #33 It was apparent from the feedback from our focus groups that approaches to collection development and management on social are unstructured - many felt that social media channels were restricted to promotional activity only. So our advice in this regard would be to play to each channels’ strength and integrate your approach. Choose which channel to use as a promotional tool then link in to resources held elsewhere as necessary, whether that be a library website repository, an online video, database or more. Create a more structured approach so that collection development becomes a regular part of your social media plan. Some libraries cited regular initiatives such as Information Literacy Friday, when regular posts would be made about an aspect of the library’s collection. Quirky posts, such as focusing on a human interest element to a collection, may create more of a buzz and encourage users to comment or repost to their friends and followers. Eg. a UK library posted pictures of an old phrenology map (which is a map of the brain) to represent content they held in their history of psychiatry section, and reported positive resulting engagement from their user group.
- #34 In the regional marketing team, we work to support libraries, in their enhancement of teaching, learning and research. We have worked with libraries around the world and can help you! Whether you need advice on marketing methods, or you want to set up some workshops. White papers can be found on the Taylor and Francis Libsite – I will also email them. If you would like to know more about anything on this list please contact me: