Marketing with social media

Marketing in Libraryland...

I looked at how the Orkney Library & Archive have embraced social networking such as Twitter and Facebook, and have also created a blog so that their users can keep up to date with services. And with users based on different islands, this must be very useful.

This quote from the Illinois libraries blog made me think:

"Social media serves as a place to enhance our relationships. Since we’ve already established trust-worthy relationships with our patrons inside the library, it’s only natural that we use social media enhance our relationships with patrons virtually."

It also mentioned how Library staff were given their own social media card to hand out to readers, which included their name, job title, e-mail, plus Twitter, Facebook and other social networking accounts they had. We use CamTools as a platform to back up what we say at inductions and online research skills sessions, as well as outline in detail the nitty gritty of being a member of the Library service. This also extends the Library from a physical collection to an electronic resource which can be accessed from anywhere at any time.

We have to market the Library service in different ways to different groups because of the diverse range of students we serve. For example, distance and part-time students do not attend regular sessions in the Faculty (& PGCEs are away on Placements during Lent & Easter terms) compared to full-time undergraduates and MPhils, therefore we promote the online resources to these students over the physical collection.

Social networking does offer new ways of learning and this is an area we are starting to explore through Twitter, and maybe Facebook...

LibraryThing

My own (not so) private Library

LibraryThing was very easy to set up and fun to add titles. I hadn't heard of it before Cam23 so I found some of the links which Kirsty encouraged us to read quite interesting. For example, the Social networking for Bookworms article suggests that LibraryThing can "connect likeminded readers - a sort of MySpace for bookworms", with the emphasis on finding more books and "not to kindle online relationships or cliques". Tagging is of course a strong element of many Web 2.0 technologies & LibraryThing is no exception, with librarians tagging their own books to "create indexes far more vibrant than anything the Library of Congress could handle".

Here's a screen shot of my profile page:


And here is the list of books I have added so far...

Use for Libraries?
I've had a look at those libraries which already use LibraryThing (Central Science & Nuffield College), but I'm not sure if it's for us at the moment. Here at Education we use CamTools to list books from reading lists or titles which have recently been added to stock. These lists include pictures of the front cover, plus a link to Newton to check if the book is available.

By the way, I liked a couple of the quotes from What do Librarians do? - "Information Ninja" & "I'm what Google wants to be when it grows up" are ones I would like to add to my name badge for the new academic year!!

Delicious

I've had a look at how the Judge Business School and the Casimir Lewy Library are using Delicious and it may have potential for some resources we currently have listed on our 24hr Library pages. Tags would be useful to help readers find information in a particular area (see the tag cloud at Thunder Bay Public Library). In one of the items for further reading which Emma suggested, Tags help make libraries Delicious, I read an interesting comment:

“If our web-savvy users notice [that the library] is using del.icio.us...our hope is that they will recognize our position in the community as information providers, visit our web site, work with our virtual collection, and become engaged library users.”

At Education we continually try to think of different ways to present information so that our readers will find it easy to access what they need for their assignments. Which is why we currently use CamTools as a platform for all our resources because of it's flexibility and we are able to make immediate changes to information available on wikis.

I created a personal account a while ago just to familiarise myself with what Delicious does. I'll now look into creating a Library account to bookmark those sites which may be relevant to Education students and link it to our web pages and CamTools sites.

Flickr

Exploring

I searched for Bury St. Edmunds, my home town, and found 19,833 results! Here is a sample (credits for photos go to Martin Pettitt):

...and I have added the RSS feed of Martin's photostream to my iGoogle page:


I like the National Library of Scotland's photostream to illustrate what they have in their archive, and the mystery photos from the Library of Congress is a fascinating way to identify parts of their collection! I wonder if people do this to try and identify faces in old family photos...

Creating

I'm very keen on the idea of creating a virtual tour of the Library using Flickr, as mentioned in the How to make Flickr work for your Library blog. I've created an account and started to upload some pictures of the Education Library. This is going to be my summer project!

iGoogle & feeds (Things 1 & 2)

Revisiting some familiar territory...

I came across iGoogle last year and started to explore how useful it could be. I played around with the different themes available, added a few standard things like the weather, BBC News feed and the obvious virtual pets! Since I became involved in the Cam23 programme, I have revisited iGoogle with my post for Things 1 & 2 in mind & have now added the following gadgets & feeds:

• RSS feed for Cam23
• Google Calendar
• COPAC
• Delicious
• RSS feed for the BBC News Education site - as I work at the Education Faculty, it's important for me to keep up to date with all the changes happening since we've had a new government
  

For fun, I've also added a gadget that regularly shows me a different Italian scene & some vocabulary to learn each day. Today, it's Venice! Who knows what I may learn tomorrow...








iGoogle & libraries

But what about iGoogle's role in libraries and with library readers? I can see that by making catalogues available as gadgets & providing RSS feeds for different services, libraries are using iGoogle as another platform for their users to access information. Here at Education we have an RSS feed for new books, and it was interesting to see other options (see 10 ways libraries can use RSS). However, having an RSS feed does depend on libraries encouraging their readers to sign up for them. We use CamTools to promote library resources to Education students, and as most readers are made members as soon as they start their course, they automatically have access to relevant information to support their studies, plus they receive announcements when something has changed or a new resource has been added (e.g. a new library Newsletter, powerpoint of a library presentation, change in opening hours, etc).

iGoogle is a very straightforward tool to use as it's fun to change the theme & contents when you like, and it's useful to have all your interests in one place. I can see myself using it as a personal tool for the foreseeable future - until the next thing comes along, anyway!