social media? what social media?

In my last post is mentioned that I was going to use my local public library, Penrith City Library (PCL) to demonstrate how libraries are using social networking to meet their goals. I believe there is a compelling case for social media so I was surprised to find PCL's webpage absent any of the usual suspects...no Twitter logo, no Facebook ... no social media icons at all.

A search for PCL's social media presence produced only one easily findable site and that was on YouTube where I found an account under the username PCClibrary, with some five year old vidoes of the library moving the collection. At first I thought there was not even a facebook page because I was searching for username PCClibrary.

Eventually I found a facebook page for Penrith Children's services. This site is jarring to me as a mum - there's lots of pictures of children. I know they would have all the right permissions to have those photos up on the web but my first thought was that perhaps Twitter might be a better social media for them.

It's not just the "who's looking at those photos" factor making me leery of photos of children on the web, it's the psychological impact of a generation growing up without anonymity. In an era where 94% of UK parents post pictures of their kids online (Dockterman, 2013, para 3) are we bringing up a generation who will have fewer choices about who they want to be as adults because their identity has already  been created for them ... online ... by their parents?

Turns out the Children's services page was not the PCL Facebook page. I did, after a conversation PCL's very helpful Communication Librarian find their page. This is an argument for coherence of online identity, my poor searching skills aside, their Youtube page handle PCCLibrary was easier to find than PCL handle. It's an interesting feed so why make people hunt for it? The post on Australia Day with a delicious recipe for TimTam cake has a caption with a typo in it, not a good look really.

One thing is clear this library is struggling with its social media  presence.

I contacted the council to find out if the lack of social media presence was intentional, that's how I got in touch with the Communications librarian who was very interesting and happy to chat via email - librarians are great aren't they?! In my experience as a user if you ask them a question they always go above and beyond to be helpful.

He supplied a copy Penrith City Council's social media policy. I don't think I'm breaking any confidence when I reveal it seems that in order to maintain control and protect council interests/privacy, this document contains a raft of prohibitions and very few liberties culminating in:

         any external or internal communication that is likely to be seen by 500 people or more                     must be authorised by the Principal Communications Officer (Penrith City Council                              Social  Media Policy, 2012, p. 8).

The tenor of the document is prescriptive and prohibitive rather than innovative and outward-looking. I understand that local government has a duty of care to its citizens and to privacy. I understand my own limitations in regards to context and the machinations of local government, I don't have even half the story here. This understanding did not mitigate my surprise at the apparent desire for control that stifles innovation in the area of social media interaction on behalf of the library.

This highlighted to me the importance of buy-in. To be innovative libraries need engaged, switched-on, enthusiastic staff. They need forethought and strategic planning that reflects their goals/mission and they need to be trusted.

Docterman, E. (2013, Sept). Should parents post pictures of their kids on Facebook? Time. 

             Retreived from http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/06/should-parents-post-pictures-of-

             their-kids-on-facebook/

Corporate Leadership Team. ((2012). Penrith City Council social media policy. Penirth: Penrith                        City Council. 

Module 4 OLJ activity: Three reasons why libraries should be using social media

Task:

Select three (3) libraries of your choice that use social networking to meet their goals. Develop a comparative table which documents how each of the libraries use social networking tools to support information service provision, educational programs, conduct business etc.

Based on this comparison (and in no more than 350 words) develop your own list of “Reasons why libraries should be on social media”, and draw upon aspects of these three libraries to illustrate each point.

I began this exercise by comparing two libraries I already follow on social media, New York Public Library (NYPL), UTS Library (University of Technology Sydney), and for interest-sake my local public library Penrith City Library (PCL). What I discovered about PCL is the stuff of another blog post however, as there is no clear evidence that PCL uses social networking to meet their goals (see Table 1), I changed tack and added the State Library of NSW (SL NSW) into the mix to develop Table 2 and the following three reasons libraries should be on social media.

1.    Self-preservation

In the age of the GFC, torrenting, and google, libraries are not the only place readers can get their books for free, they are no longer the gatekeepers of knowledge so they must prove their worth in terms of both capital investment and user engagement. Terra Dankowski (2013) points to the “more than 80 facebbok pages and 60 Twitter accounts representing the 90 branches” (p. 34) as evidence that NYPL is an exemplary model for using social media to maintain viability in the information society. Johannes Neuer states NYPL’s goals for social media as “brand awareness, increased traffic and creating community” (quoted in Dankowski, 2013, p.34.) citing a 35% increase in membership as a response to a sustained Twitter campaign as proof of success.

2. Innovative service

While there is still a place for the traditional buildings with books, “libraries face challenges to innovate their service to stay competitive” (Scupola & Nicholajsen, 2013, p. 27). Users can now chose where they’ll get their information/entertainment from a huge array of options and they are doing it remotely – if libraries don’t have a social media presence users can and will just ignore one service in preference for another. The Social Media page of the UTS website tells users they can “find us” on facebook, join the conversation on Twitter, watch tutorials online, and engage with the story. UTS has a fun and engaging presence as demonstrated by their Twitter feed. This moves the library on from the traditional service and offers an attractive way for students to engage with the service. 

3. Create community

Public libraries have a long history of building community, as providers of ‘free’ public services (supported by rate-payers), and as repositories of local history. SL NSW stresses this in its Strategic framework and supports these ideals through social media engagement, articulating this through a Social Media Policy that states “social media can be used to enhance communication, collaboration and information exchange” (State Library NSW, 2012, p. 10). SL NSW’s facebook page is a great example of leveraging social media to create community, with a 4.4 star rating it’s clear that users approve, there is strong support for local events, such as the recent Sydney bushfires, and a focus on marketing library activities.

Dankowski, T. (2013). How libraries are using socila media: Expanding online toolkits to promote 

         advocacy. American Libraries, 44(5), 38-41.

Scupola, A., & Nicolajsen, H. W. (2013). Using social media for service innovations: Challenges 

         and pitfall. International Journal of E-Business research, 9(3), 27-37.