One strategy she emphasizes is gathering evidence. But evidence doesn’t just have to be surveys or numbers. It can also be anecdotes and stories. One thing that she said in a workshop I participated in this summer was that “a story is just a story until you write it down.” Once it’s recorded it becomes evidence and you can use it to demonstrate value to a variety of stakeholders.

It occurred to me that there is already data available to libraries that we may not recognize as such. Tweets, Facebook posts, and online reviews can be great tools in demonstrating value.

One of the great strengths of social media is that it is by nature recorded. It’s not a spoken conversation that disappears into the ether. It is a record of something that happened and can be used as evidence.

The above tweet is just one example. Not only did this tweet demonstrate the value of the library to this person’s followers and any other people who saw it (not to mention was the best kind of free marketing you can get). It can also be used to demonstrate to administrators or professors that the library contributes to academic success.

I’m guessing just one tweet or Facebook post won’t make a difference, but if your library is using social media I am guessing posts like these happen more than once. The key is to watch for them and intentionally collect them. You might have a “Praise” of “Kudos” folder in your email or on your hard drive. When someone says something great you or your library did you save it. The same should be true with social media posts. Don’t just smile at a positive post and then let it pass by. Create a system to save these posts whether it’s favoriting them, bookmarking them or capturing a screenshot. Then you’ll have them collected when it comes time to make your case.

You can then use them in a variety of places: interspersed through your annual report, in presentations to the board or faculty senate, in promotional ads or materials. But in order to do that you first need to recognize that social media posts are evidence and then have a system set up to capture them.

Report library happenings

If the library is closing early due to weather or if a printer is down, we can communicate via Twitter, among other channels. If we are having events like an international photo contest or a chili cook off, we can let people know. It’s also helpful to let people know when new displays, art, or exhibits are put up. I like to post an update every time we put up our new book display for the month as well as post a picture of a particularly interesting cover.

Promote library resources/services

When we get new interesting resources, we let people know via Twitter. When we got Mango languages, I posted it to Twitter and people retweeted the post and asked about it a lot.  I also even simply promote our print collection at relevant times. On St. Patrick’s Day I posted this tweet promoting Oscar Wilde’s short fiction. About half an hour later a student came up from the stacks with a James Joyce title and said he was inspired by the library’s Twitter post.

Build community

Looking at the statistics for our library Twitter account, 31% of all our tweets are retweets. That means that at least third of the content, ideas, and events we’re promoting are not our own. Last week we relayed a message from a student about the Vagina Monologues production that was going to be happening on campus. We also have posted information about the human versus zombies game that occurs every fall (for more info about this fairly awesome game, go here). Libraries are hearts of the community, so of course we want to promote what other people are doing. One of our strategic goals at the library is “foster a sense of campus community” and Twitter helps us to do that.

Engage our users

We don’t simply use twitter as a bullhorn though either. We try to engage members of our community. I post news articles of relevance and ask questions. I also noticed when people are working on papers or projects and do what I can to encourage them or help them. Below is an interaction where a student was writing a business paper on virtual teams, and it was an opportunity for the library to help.

Monitor library related tweets

People are likely saying things about your library or things that are related to your library. The reason I am able to find questions or tweets like the one above is because I monitor our Champlain College hashtag and because I have some tweet alerts set up for specific word related to libraries, research, and papers. Through this monitoring, we can address user concerns and answer their questions.

Solicit feedback

This is something that we are not doing quite as well, and I hope that we can improve. But Twitter is a perfect tool to ask for feedback on some service you are thinking about adding or some initiative you recently implemented. Twitter is great for informally asking questions. When designing resources or services for users, it’s important to actually ask them. Twitter is one tool that could facilitate that.

Create greater awareness of the library

Doing all the aforementioned things creates a greater awareness of the library and what it has to offer. Being active on social networking sites like Twitter makes the library more visible. Not every post gets noticed. And some that you think go unnoticed are actually effective. With the St. Patrick’s Day post I mentioned before, no one tweeted back saying what a good post it was. It seemed like it may have fallen on deaf ears. But not long after a student came in, mentioned he saw the post, and checked out a book because of it.

Facebook, email, and print are all important too and should be used accordingly depending on your community. But Twitter is great tool to have in your communication toolbox. It can be powerful in furthering your library’s mission.

Enter the Meebo Bar. It’s a piece of javascript code that’s sits as a layer on top of a website.  This allows it to be on multiple pages so your widget is not just on your “ask a librarian” page or your homepage; it’s everywhere without taking up a bunch or room. In addition, it’s fully customizable so you can include your library’s Facebook page, posts from your Twitter stream, Flickr photos, YouTube videos, and more. Users can get help from a librarian and also connect with them on social media all from a single bar on any of the library’s pages.

For possible downsides, because it is all hosted on Meebo’s server it could be changed at anytime. They might decide one day to include ads on all their bars. Though I think their current model of opting into ads for a small cut of the revenue is working for them. But other than that it seems like it could be the next generation of service for libraries providing virtual reference to their members. I made a quick screencast demoing an example of what a library Meebo Bar could look like. If you want to play with one yourself, you can visit their website or see it in action over at Slate.

Is anyone currently using this? Would this be something that could be useful at your library?

Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in Pennsylvania went on a social media blackout this week starting Monday in order to get students thinking about their use of technology in their lives. This seems like a very interesting experiment, especially for a technology school. Depending on how it is executed it could be an educational success or a failure in which students are simply trying to thwart the university’s efforts.

Whatever the outcome, I like the sentiment behind this experiment. As librarians and educators we should be teaching students to be thoughtful, reflective individuals and to integrate technology meaningfully into their life. These skill are integrally tied to information literacy and are ones that they will desperately need as connected citizens in this society.

The value of digital fasts such as the one at Harrisburg are debatable (found via Librarian By Day). As we all know email can pile up, and important messages could be missed. Steven Bell suggests that simply taking time occasionally to power down and leave the screen for a while can be useful for reflection and rejuvenation. Like anything, I feel that it is best to maintain balance. Completely shutting down for a week and then playing catch up will have you stressed that whole week.

We realize that there is value in disconnecting sometimes. I recently started reading the book Hamlet’s Blackberry by William Powers. Powers draws on philosophers of the past to gain practical insights into our present technological age (ironically I’m reading this book on my iPad which is another piece of connected digital technology). He says that in order to make meaning of our digital interactions we need to create gaps in between them for reflection. These gaps allow for “epiphanies, insights, and joys.”

This makes sense. This has happened in my life and happens to everyone. My colleague Sarah is constantly talking about the great ideas that she comes up with in the shower. Periods of reflection allow us to create meaning. But do students feel the same way? Do they see the value in unplugging and taking time for reflection? In one of our information literacy classes at Champlain College we devote time to this. We talk about how research is not just finding information and throwing it all together. It is necessary to take time to think about how different pieces fit together and what your next steps will be. We actually give students five minutes to reflect in class. I like this lesson and want to flesh it out more and improve on it.

We don’t have all the answers ourselves as professionals. Some of us over-tweet, are buried in emails and are constantly re-acting when we should be acting. I don’t think a social media blackout is the answer for everyone, but I do appreciate additional attention to this issue. We should be creating more dialogue on our campus that discuss this issue of technology, reflection, and the good life. Librarians could be thoughtful leaders in these discussions.

photo by rpongsaj on Flickr

There has been a ton of talk online about the most recent privacy debacle, stemming from Facebook’s Open Graph and other privacy changes. One interesting point of view was that of tech blogger Robert Scoble who wished that Facebook was more open, because right now only 5000 people can see his page.

In contrast to this viewpoint, danah boyd believes that most people are not like Robert Scoble. They are angry and confused with these changes and feel like they have to suffer through them and continually “fix” their privacy settings when Facebook makes changes. The reason they feel like they have no other choice and cannot delete their profile is because they have invested so much in creating it, and all their friends still use it as a way of primary contact. People feel trapped.

Another viewpoint comes from Mashable contributor Ben Parr, who defends what Facebook is doing. He makes the point that privacy on the web is dead. Even if you can control who sees your profile, any information you put up is still a copy/paste away from being out on the open web. You have little control of something once it goes online.

Since libraries are champions of privacy, I think there are a couple of lessons here for us and our users:

• Privacy is the responsibility of the user – If you are worried about someone (mom, ex-girlfriend, employer) seeing something on your Facebook profile, you probably shouldn’t post it in the first place. Privacy online is an illusion. This is Parr’s point about any info being a copy/paste away from everyone seeing it. If something is put on Facebook or elsewhere, others will eventually see it. It’s simply good practice to not post secret things online.
• Social media is public sharing of information – Going along with the first point, there are no more walls. Twitter is an open conversation. Facebook is realizing this as well and trying to make their site more open. They want to allow people to share more across the web (the reason for Open Graph). Mark Zuckerburg believes that public sharing is the new social norm and wants to tap into that.
• People use social media for different purposes – Robert Scoble wants Facebook to be more open, but that’s because he uses it for self promotion. As boyd points out most people don’t use Facebook in this way. They use it to keep in touch with friends and share their personal lives. Social media has tons of uses though: self-promotion, learning, communication, marketing, friendship, etc. Assuming that everyone is using a tool exactly like you is terribly short-sighted.

I agree with boyd that people are frustrated and feel trapped. But the reason for this is because they are believing a lie. Facebook created the illusion that you have privacy settings and these settings keep your information safe. In reality, these settings are confusing and often change; and even with privacy settings a friend can download a photo you post and put it elsewhere. In the age of social media, information posted on the web (even behind walls) can be shared everywhere.

This can be a great thing. A lot of amazing things can happen with this ease of sharing information. The problem comes when people share things on the web that they shouldn’t. In my opinion libraries and privacy task forces should be focused on dispelling this illusion that people have walled social media gardens where they can air their dirty laundry.

Laura, a London law librarian, asked in the comments of the post how this idea was working out. So, I figured I would share my experiences.

So far, things have been fairly positive. If I find someone from our college is doing a paper I may send them a link to a possible useful resource, or even just wish them good luck. Sometimes I don’t hear anything back, sometimes I do.

Erik Qualman said in his viral video Social Media Revolution “in the near future we will no longer search for products and services. They will find us via social media.” That’s what’s going on here. Social media, powerful search capabilities, and RSS make it possible to have a form of ESP. We can deliver value to our patrons when they are not even expecting it and maybe even make them say “wow” like in the example above.

Like I said, not everything has been a success. Sometimes I don’t hear back from folks, but hopefully they find the support useful. But the alerts I’ve set up also give me a lot of insight into the research and study habits of students. There’s a lot of talk of procrastination, and a number of late night posts or posts about the rigors of writing papers. Some students post multiple tweets about the paper they’re working on, and you can see that their being  pretty diligent about it.

The value of Twitter, and social media in general, is not just delivering services but also listening and learning more about your users. These alerts are doing both.

image cc on Flickr via brunkfordbraun

You have a library website. People go there, learn about your library, get help, and access your resources. But that’s not the only place where people should be able to do those things. The library website should be thought of as a larger critter, with tentacles that stretch out in lot of different directions, trying to scoop in unsuspecting patrons.

What do I mean by tentacles? Tentacles are other places, spread out on the web, where people can connect with the library. This could mean customizing your library Facebook page, to add a chat widget or links to library resources. It could also mean having notes on pictures in Flickr that link to a catalog record. It could mean a lot of things:

• Library resources in your LMS (Angel, Blackboard, Moodle, etc)
• Creating search alerts in Twitter to snag patrons who didn’t even know the library could help
• Library blogs
• Library videos on Youtube or Vimeo

Your official library website should be a sort of home base where people can learn everything about your library and what you have to offer. But having tentacles can be very useful in showing the value of the library and catching users who may never go to your website.

An LMS is a good example of a tentacle. Some users (especially distance users) may never even think about the library. But if you have a section or page in an LMS then the library may become more visible and get additional use. The same goes with Twitter. Users may not be following you library account, but if you set up alerts for a few library related words, you can contact them and make them realize that they have access to a library and that it could be of value to them.

Get bits of your content out to numerous places on the web. Don’t think of these things as watered down versions of your website. Think of them as tentacles stretching out across the web, extending your services and resources to unexplored nooks and crannies.

Facebook has been around for six years now. And now is the time if you’ve been holding out to start a Facebook page for your library. Or if you have one, to recommit resources and attention to it. We can no longer afford to just “be on the web.” The web has become social, so we need to be social on the web. It reminds me of when the web was new and people were still unsure about getting a web page for their business. This is the same thing. I can guarantee you that if your users are on the web, then a significant portion of them are on Facebook.

The barriers to getting a page on Facebook are very low too. It’s not like designing an entire website. Facebook makes it easy for businesses and organizations to be represented and deliver their content to users. It’s also easy to customize your Facebook page. I see it as a more fun, interactive extension of your current website. Patrons are already in Facebook and used to it’s interface, so it could be a great place to get non-users aware of and perhaps using the library.

We have a very basic custom tab in Facebook called Research. It allows people to do research in a place they’re already familiar with. It includes a box to search the catalog, a box for Google Scholar (which we’ve enabled with Library Links), and ways to contact us, most notably by IM.

The time has come for libraries to be social on the web. Social is the new normal. It has become mainstream and people expect it. Library 2.0 is not dead, it has just become boring and commonplace. And to quote Clay Shirky, “Tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.”

Well, things are getting interesting.

This got me thinking though. There are likely a lot of potential library related questions on Twitter from our patrons that we miss because they might not be asking us or thinking of the library when they tweet. Patrons may be talking about proper citation or research though not @replying or DMing the library.

So, to remedy this and catch some of these questions I set up several alerts using Twitter’s advanced search. You can take advantage of the Boolean nature of the advanced search to make your searches very specific. I set up searches for:

• Tweets containing the word library
• Tweets containing the word cite
• Tweets containing the word research
• Tweets containing the word paper
• Tweets containing the word need AND book OR article OR books OR articles

All of these alerts I set up were within a 10-25 mile radius of the college to keep it targeted locally and keep hits managable. I keep these alerts in a folder in Google Reader.

Different libraries might run different searches. For example a public library around this time may run a search having to do with “tax help” or “taxes.” The searches can be tailored to your specific community, and they can be modified over time. I may find that some of the searches I’m running never return any useful hits. But something like the word “cite” or “citation” is not used that often. When it is, there’s a decent chance it’s something a library can help with.

What do other folks think? Are there other searches you would run? Is this just going out and looking for more work?