Another point of view
I just read Rochelle Mazar’s article on “Libraries and Social Media” in the OLA Access magazine. For those of you who get the magazine, you can have a read, but the article isn’t online at the OLA site. The closest I can bring you to it is Mazar’s post on her blog which appears to be an early draft (or maybe parsed down version) of the article.
She has some interesting points. She says that “I just haven’t seen any compelling reasons why libraries absolutely must use social media networks”. That being said, she explains how her library (the University of Toronto Mississauga Library) is using Twitter to deliver announcements. But that’s only the first step – their RSS parser then posts those feeds to the library website and they also go up on the library’s digital signage. So – they are using Twitter as a tool to push out this information and they chose Twitter because it’s easy to syndicate and easy to use. Interesting. The librarians chose this tool because it served their purpose but, as Mazar admits, they have taken the interactivity out of the technology, thereby not really using it in the way others advocate it should be used.
Mazar also notes “that people over 25 make the best use of social media tools”, which I found interesting. I had thought that as an academic librarian trying to engage undergraduates, social media would be the way – but maybe that isn’t where they are yet (or they don’t want to engage with social media technology except to keep in contact with their friends).
Finally, she believes that “social media’s current focus is on individuals with passions communicating with other individuals with passions” and because of that, it may not serve the needs of institutions.
Being so new to this discussion, I’m not sure what I think yet – I just found it interesting to find this point of view being presented by a woman who is an Emerging Technologies Librarian and a self-admitted fan of social media.
Wow Sandra, that article is really interesting. I think the concept of generational realms of communication using social software is fascinating. Every age group uses new technology differently I suppose. This leads back to what I was talking about in my blog post yesterday regarding choosing to use the tools as means of conversation. I guess it still isn’t happening, at least at that particular library…
chrissy — January 22, 2010 @ 10:03 am
I find that very interesting, Sandra; there’s an awareness that libraries *should* be using social software, so they do, but they do it in kind of low impact ways.
I also tend to see the point about social software not serving the needs of institutions, because it is more about individuals. In some ways, we’re fitting square pegs into round holes.
As a sidenote, I’ve seen the University of Windsor library using social software in ways similar to what you describe at U of T Mississauga – is this what academic libraries are going through – are public libraries somehow more effortlessly plugged in?
dayna — January 22, 2010 @ 10:51 am
Interesting point about academic libraries, Dayna. Interesting because it’s always good for me (buried deep in the MLIS) to hear from people who are out there in the real world.
sandraherber — January 22, 2010 @ 10:54 am
Hi Sandra,
I think a lot of us will be surprised at the contrast between what we are told is out there and what is really out there once we are back out there.
michel — January 23, 2010 @ 7:05 pm
I’ve been sort of waiting for someone to blast me for writing that article…there are lots of librarians, even academic librarians, who use social media full steam ahead regardless of the small numbers of their own patrons they can reach through it. In the end everyone needs to sort out what works best for them, but I was feeling like there was some pressure out there to go go go on social media when I still don’t think too many people have wrapped their heads around it in truly sustainable ways.
The blog post was first; the editor approached me about putting it in the magazine, so I elaborated on it for the article.
I’d really love to see the public librarianship angle on it. From our perspective, we don’t really struggle to get our patrons through the doors; sometimes we struggle to get them OUT of the doors! I think sometimes our students would prefer it if they could actually just live in the library. I’m sure it’s a different story when your user base DOESN’T have your library on their list of daily places to visit. Then I might be singing a different tune.
Anyway, I’m glad you found the article thought-provoking in some way. In spite of everything I write up, every project in a library is a living thing, a work-in-progress. Maybe I’ll write something next year that is the exact opposite of this one.
I hope you’re having fun at Western! I sure did; that was only 5 years ago (hard to believe)!
Rochelle Mazar — January 30, 2010 @ 11:55 pm
I’m flattered, Rochelle, that you took the time to comment on my blog. The reason I posted on your article (and blog post) was that I thought it was a reasoned comment/response to social media. It wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction against it and it carried weight, because as you said, you are a fan of social media in general. Your thoughts were coming at the issue from the ‘inside’, as it were. I think it’s vitally important that we evaluate the utility of social media tools and make sure they can really improve our users’ experience before we dive headlong into adopting them. One of the exciting things about this class is that it will expose us to many of these tools, but then it is up to us to see if they will significantly improve our users’ experience once we are out in the workplace.
I also found it interesting to hear about your point of view on getting your patrons IN (or OUT) of the library.
Thanks again for the comment. Are you going to the Superconference next month? Perhaps we will see each other at the FIMS Alumni reception on Thursday evening (I think I’m close enough to being an alumna to get in).
sandraherber — January 31, 2010 @ 8:44 am