Monica's blog

No doubt, Twitter can be an excellent and popular tool for Libraries.

-its tone is conversational, making it less intimidating

-it is present time.  Whatever is new and exciting NOW is the focus.

-because the messages have a restriction length of 140 characters, users get to the meat of things instantly.

-like several social media tools, a library’s twitter account can be used as a virtual bulletin board.

However, I am a little embarrassed to say this seeing as I believe that social software has great value in libraries, but I am actually torn about a particular characteristic of twittering libraries this week.  It occurred to me as I was reviewing the case studies to see some library twitter accounts in action.

My issue, one that I haven’t made my mind up about yet, is the conversational tone of some of the tweets.  For example, MyCityLibrary, the West Palm Beach Library Twitter account, has some excellent tweets, such as:

“Yoga and Argentine Tango both at 6pm tonight.  We’re a busy place on Thursdays!”

“Here’s what’s happening today at the library! . . . .”

These tweets are catchy, informative, and inclusive to all.

However, there are other tweets within this feed such as:

“@snackbpc It IS one of my favorites. The audiobook is amazing”

“@VirtualJenn Sounds great! I’ll have to send in my RSVP”

These tweets were rather distracting.  They were irrelevant to the library community as a whole. I was not interested in reading personal conversations, and I wondered if some library users felt somewhat excluded.

Although I had this reaction, I know that I am not a member of this library community making my opinion biased.  These personal conversations might not bother the followers of this twitter account.

However, I couldn’t help but have this debate in my head over whether or not conversational tweets are hindering a library’s twitter account.

On the one hand:

-twitter is a place for conversation to happen.  Additionally, it is for conversation that is informal.

-conversation between patrons and librarians, patrons and patrons, or librarians and librarians is actually happening and that’s a wonderful thing.  It is something that librarians strive for.  This twitter account has established a community atmosphere.

-to tell patrons that they should not interact within this twitter account is risky.  Libraries are labeled with that fictitious stereotype of being the “rule maker”.  By placing such a rule, the library is reinforcing the old stereotype and building a wall between librarians and their patrons once again.

On the other hand:

-are these tweets overwhelming to new twitter users?  Are they getting a sense of community or are they feeling left out of “the clique”?

-is there a danger in too many conversational tweets?  Are the valuable informational tweets lost in the cluster of conversation?  I mean, if my cell phone kept vibrating with messages such as: “See you 2nite?” I would probably stop following the account.  I hope that patrons can still see the overall purpose of this twitter account.

This is such a difficult issue; one that I do not have an answer to.  What do you think?

Tags: community, libraries, Twitter

It was 2007 when I joined Facebook.  I had to join.  All of my friends were on it and they couldn’t believe that I wasn’t.  It was the new medium to keep me in “the loop”.  Soon after, all of us finished our undergraduate degrees and moved away from each other making Facebook our #1 means to remain connected. As our lives grew busy, we still managed to keep in touch with sporadic wall posts, status updates, organizing occasional get-togethers in the “events” section, and by posting pictures.  With Facebook, staying connected couldn’t have been easier.

So why should a library create a Facebook account?  If it isn’t serving a clear purpose, I don’t think that librarians should be wasting their time.  Meredith Farkas’s expands this point in her blog post Libraries in Social Networking Software. She says, “I think there is a big difference between “being where our patrons are” and “being USEFUL to our patrons where they are”” (Farkas).  I agree with Farkas.  If a library does not have a direction on facebook, they will inevitably lose their initial users.

So, if a library does decide that they want to create a Facebook account, the first step they should take is to determine what information they will include on their Facebook page.  To do this, they should heavily focus on deciding who their user community is.  What are their needs?  What are their interests?  Every library community is different so librarians need to determine unique qualities they can include on their Facebook page in order to draw their community members in and keep them there.

After the librarians have determined the needs and interests of their community, it is time to decide what the overall purpose of their Facebook page will be.  Is it informative? Promotional? A means of communicating and building an online community between patrons and librarians?  For fun? Or perhaps a mixture of everything.  Whatever the library decides, knowing what the library Facebook’s purpose is is essential.

Once librarians have determined their account’s overall purpose and their Facebook account is up and running there are a few services that librarians can add.  The first is their profile information. Here, they can include their address, phone number, email, possibly their website, and any other information related to their library.  Photos of the library building, the library staff, and a map indicating their location may also give a feeling of familiarity and closeness to library users.  There were a couple other features on the Facebook page for Hennepin County Library that I thought were excellent: the “Find Books & More” as well as “Ask Us”.  The “Find Books & More” was a search engine for their library catalogue.  This feature is incredibly convenient because Facebook users can enter the library catalogue without having to visit the library website.  The “Ask Us” is very similar in convenience.  I think that this is excellent in that if library users have any queries about the topics provided on the library’s Facebook page, they do not have to delay their questions.

Finally, a library’s Facebook page needs to be monitored frequently.  I believe that one of the best methods for creating an online community between librarians and their users is for librarians to offer responses to comments and queries quickly.  The promptness in their replies should demonstrate to the users that they matter.  Additionally, if the response time is quick, there is a possibility that the library user may ask another question, creating a conversation online.  These interactions as well as the details I discussed above could result in an exceptionally dynamic Facebook page.

Tags: community, facebook, library