Social media is not going away. As new platforms emerge, libraries will need to choose the channels that work for their communities. But whatever platforms they choose, they must have some kind of plan that outlines their goals and embrace philosophies that support interactivity with their communities. I think Bizzle summed it up best, “Successful libraries will determine what platforms most effectively reach their target audience and aggressively build sustainable presences there.

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Social Media: Libraries Are Posting, but Is Anyone Listening?

This is about Facebook but its still very good.

networkedlibrary:

Finals is to library as Easter is to church: finals is when you see students that only come to the library once a semester.

We use Hootsuite Pro to manage our social media accounts, and I use it to generate a really basic weekly sentiment analysis report that tells us what kinds of language people are using when they tweet about us. Real sentiment analysis is a very difficult thing to do well, and involves setting up your own taxonomies, training your software to categorize relevant phrases accurately, etc etc. So I take Hootsuite’s sentiment analysis with a grain of salt. However, there does seem to be a clear trend: during finals, students vent on Twitter. And when they vent, it often involves talking smack about the library. This comparison shows typical sentiment for finals, when students say things like, “I’m going to jump off the roof of the library! #finals #killme.”

I guess it’s good our humiliation/shame numbers are still low?

Indeed, the biggest advantage of social media is the ability to have conversations with patrons and visitors even when they are not physically in the library.

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Is Social Media An Effective Marketing Tool for Public Libraries? 

My office job requires talking to a lot of different libraries about their events, a lot of whom say things like “well we have a sign up sheet and that is good enough and nobody comes out anyway etc”. And we do that at my library job too, but in doing so we’re ignoring all of those people who don’t step foot into the library. We’re having a magic workshop next week, and the sign up sheet had two or three names on it until we sent fliers to the schools to get the word out. Now I’m getting calls all of the time from interested people who want to sign up. I can only imagine what would happen if we put it out on the internet. What a revelation.

It’s just no wonder nobody shows up to anything if your only method of bringing people in is a sign up sheet. It’s so important we go out and market ourselves, physically, virtually, whatever, as long as it’s outside of the library.

(via thedanaash)

There’s a growing group of us who are passionate about literature and web culture. I call that The Bookternet, and they’re my favorite people.

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Book-Jobs Not by the Book: Rachel Fershleiser of Tumblr

<3 <3 <3

We decided that a daily campaign that spotlights a different eBook every day would effectively grab patrons’ attention and provide much –needed readers’ advisory; we dubbed our campaign, “eBook of the Day.

— A great post from Tumblrarian gobstacked on the Overdrive website!

darienlibrary:

I’ve started leaving Foursquare tips around town from the Library’s account. How would you like to eat at a restaurant and then see what dish your local librarian recommends hmmm?

The Darien Library is everywhere on the internet and maybe also in real life. At your farmer’s market. In your supermarket cheese aisle. Ordering dumplings at the Thai place down the road.

Survey: Social media use in archives and special collections →

ex-tabulis:

Librarians, archivists, and information professionals of tumblr! I am researching social media use in archives and special collections, and part of my project is to send out a survey to archives and special collections about their current practices. I would appreciate it so much if you could re-blog and/or send this link around!

Hey beloved librarian tumblr community! Let’s support each other. Here’s one good way to start (or continue): TAKE THIS SURVEY! For a more in-depth explanation, click through here.

If you can take yourself out of your first world techie social media smart-shoes for a second then imagine this: you’re 53 years old, you’ve been in prison from 20 to 26, you didn’t finish high school, and you have a grandson who you’re now supporting because your daughter is in jail. You’re lucky, you have a job at the local Wendy’s. You have to fill out a renewal form for government assistance which has just been moved online as a cost saving measure (this isn’t hypothetical, more and more municipalities are doing this now). You have a very limited idea of how to use a computer, you don’t have Internet access, and your survival (and the survival of your grandson) is contingent upon this form being filled out correctly.

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Why we should care about libraries (via A Whole Lotta Nothing)

Other than the problematic phrase “first world” (hate “first world problems” ugh!), I completely agree. I believe that this is what libraries need to become. I have spent time helping people fill out forms, find the correct documents, even send an email. I figured out what people wanted through hand gestures. I just think there’s so much we can offer to people from so many backgrounds.

And yet we still have so many accessibility issues. 

(via morerobots)

queenslibrary:

Showing off our library’s social (media) side (Taken with instagram).

Queens Library has LJ beat on social media. But if/when we get on Pinterest, your minds will be blown.

Librarians adopted our social media presence way before anyone else. And the only people who watched us were either librarians or teenagers who heard about us through their librarians.

— John Green at ALA Midwinter 2012 (via thelifeguardlibrarian)

Lessons for Libraries?

From Reflections of a Newsosaur, “Engagement: The new digital metric”

The chase for online traffic has put news organizations “on a sugar high of fat audiences and thin revenue,” continued the researchers. And that is strategically misguided at a time when user loyalty and passion will be the keys to building healthy and profitable digital publishing businesses. 

The longer editors and publishers are rewarded for super-sizing audiences instead of building engagement, the longer they will be heading in the wrong direction.