Social Media In A Library Context Dl

SOCIAL MEDIA & LIBRARIESDaniel Lopatin / Pratt SILS        November 30th, 2009  

Daniel LopatinPratt SILS 11.30.09

WEB 2.0... What's The Deal?

The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0)

1.0                                                          2.0Online encyclopedias   -->       Wikipediapersonal websites       -->       bloggingdirectories                 -->         tagging(taxonomy)                            ("folksonomy")stickiness                  -->       syndicationpublishing                 -->         participation(static media)                           (social media}

What do we mean by "Social Media" ?

Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. 

It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.

Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

Social Media Proliferation… 

• Facebook: over 300 million users• Hundreds of millions youtube videos present today•  Americans spend 14 hours a week on the web (average)

How Are Libraries Using Social Media?

• Building user communities via library materials and programming

• Sharing resources• Interactive reference• Event and op blogs• Digitally iterated special collections

Social Media in a Library Context:Rationale• Raises awareness and promotes the library in terms of its available services

and programs

• Manages the library’s brand and reputation and further disseminates the library's mission statement message (outbound PR).

• Generates ideas for library improvements via crowdsourcing. 

• Provides frameworks for user-generated content.

• Builds stronger customer service communication lines with patrons (and provides good data regarding patron usage via web metrics)

SOCIAL MEDIA ENABLES COMMUNITY BUILDING SURROUNDING YOUR INSTITUTION'S PRACTICES!

WHAT IT ALL BOILSDOWN TO.... 

LETS FOCUSON THE 2.0 APPSTALWARTS...

JUST LIKE OUR FRIENDS ATTHE NYPL DID.

NYPL Flickr Commons Overview• The Commons project represents a fraction (1300 items and growing) of

NYPL's overall digital holdings available at the NYPL DIGITAL Gallery. Consider it an experiment in a particular sort of engaging with the holdings.

• These are available to view, tag and discuss in the Flickr Commons, and are offered as an invitation to explore further on the NYPL's website or in their physical libraries. 

• NYPL librarians have already created rich metadata for many of these items, particularly with subject headings that relate the contents of the images. Rather than discard this information, the Digital Experience Group has added a selection of these headings, repurposed as tags, as a nucleus for everyone else to build from. 

• The hope is that this will stimulate rather than stifle activity on the Commons, with librarians and non-librarians collaborating on the description of this material.  http://www.flickr.com/people/nypl/

Library 2.0 Challenges

• Privacy & Copyright• Response Assessment / Moderation• PR / Marketing / Outreach ---> populating channels

vs. site dryouts• TMI !!! Identifying information needs / limits

ie. "eating a sandwich" status updates• Branding consistency• Training / selecting appropriate staff 

Time and resources

Library 2.0 Assessment

• Metrics software

• Flickr/Youtube stats

• Comments

• Blog/forum feedback queries (advanced Google searches)

• CMS integrated surveys

• Subscriber analysis / counts

        A 2.0 Model For The Future...            Library CMS & Social Media App Integration