Social Networking and Librarianship

Dr. B. Maharana Reader & Coordinator

P. G. Department of Library & Information Science Sambalpur University

bulumaharana@gmail.com

Web 2.0 in Brief and Benefits • User-Centered • Personalized content • Collaborative • Social - Conversation/Community • Interactive- Participatory, not passive • Content-rich, multi-media-rich • De-centralized (control) • Portable- available anywhere, anytime • Many-to-many and/or few-to-few communication • Networking opportunities galore • Convenient

Social Media Harnessing Web 2.0 Technologies & Tools

Social Media Social media encompas many technologies

– Internet forums – Weblogs , Micro blogging – Wikis – Social networking – Podcasts , vodcasting – Photographs or pictures – Media/Video sharing, social gaming – Social bookmarking, tagging – Slide sharing tools – Instant Messaging, chats, RSS, Mashups – Personal portals, – Virtual worlds, and many others

Social Networking Sites

What are “Social Networking Sites”?

Social Networking Site

“an internet or mobile-based social space where people can connect, communicate, and create and share content with others”.

Three common elements of Social Networking Sites

1. a member profile (in their definition this is always a web

page); 2. the ability to add other members to a contact

list (the names of your contacts vary – they might be called friends or buddies);

3. supported interaction between members of contact lists (interaction varies greatly, and there will typically be some degree of interaction facilitated between people who are not named contacts).

Reference: Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship Danah Boyd & Nichole Ellison http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

Social Networking…. old wine in a new bottle

• While the term social networking may be new, the concepts behind it—creating community, sharing content and collaborating with others are not.

• In fact, they have been around for a long time,

as early as the time of Plato in 400 B.C.

Consulting Research Scientist, OCLC

What do people do with SNS?

• Viewing content/finding information • Creating and customising profiles • Connecting with existing networks, making

and developing friendships/contacts • Adding and sharing content • Posting messages – public & private • Collaborating with other people

In his book, The Age of the Platform, Phil Simon describes the value of a modern platform as follows:

“[Platforms] bring together like-minded

individuals who often share surprisingly similar goals. Together these individuals make up the most powerful component of any open project: the community.”

The Network Effect…. While many networks give us the means to connect more effectively, none has changed how we live, learn, work and play more quickly—and some say, more profoundly—than the Web. This is partly because it has collapsed so many different media into one source, letting us read, listen, watch, play, talk, sell, buy, work, publish and broadcast all in the same space.

Social Networking

Services

Profile-based SNS

Content-based SNS

White-label SNS

Multi-User Virtual

Environments

Mobile SNS

Micro-blogging/ Presence updates

People Search

Bebo, Facebook and MySpace,

Flickr, Youtube

Ning

Second Life

MySpace, Twitter

MySpace, Twitter

Classmate,

Types of SNS

• General

– MySpace, Facebook, Google+, Orkut, Bebo, QQ Friendster, many more

• Professional, academic, research– LinkedIn, Ning, ResearchGate, Academia.edu

• Subject specific – Library2.0, ALA Connect

• Internal - ALA Connect • External - Facebook

April, 2013 Statistics on Social Networking Sites (Unique monthly visitors)

750,000,000

250,000,000

110,000,000

70,500,000

65,000,000

“Social networking isan opportunity for libraries and museums to do thesame–bring together their patrons, raise funds andeven have their core audience have a say in whatexhibits they’d like to see, or what improvements needto be made”.

How Social Networking Works?

How social networks manage millions of users and hundreds

of millions of updates?

Social networks are built on top of LAMP

(Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl)

Reaching the users in their preferred environment

Meredith Farkas Academic librarian, Portland State University

“If libraries are not the first place our prospective users go to do research, they will likely miss any marketing we do on our own Web sites. This is why we must start looking beyond these sites and toward putting our content where our users actually are”.

Potential Use of SN Sites for Library Services

• The way users interact, share information, seek information has now undergone a big change

• Provide new exciting form of development • Be aware of developments & adapt to changing environment • Enables libraries to place them in current environment • Potential for reaching out to users where they are present • Create professional image & impact • Enables libraries to add social elements • Remain valuable & relevant to users • Need to take fully informed decisions to make its full potential

Few SNS for Librarians

• Communication MySpace, Facebook, Ning, Blog, LinkedIn,

Twitter, etc. • Distribution Flickr, Youtube, Wikipedia, PBWiki, Slideshare,

etc. • Organization Del.icio,us, Connotea, LibraryThing, etc.

New York University Libraries on Facebook

Library of Congress on Facebook

Maharshi Dayanand College Library

New York University Libraries

MIT Libraries

University of Michigan Library

University of Washington Libraries

MySpace for librarians

Denver Public Library

New York Public Library

American Library Association

British Library

British Library

New York Public Library

American Library Chennai

New York Public Library

ResearchGate

Planning for SNS Use by Library…

• Planning is vital for implementing – Think before- benefits & drawbacks – Planning help us anticipate any problem and craft library

presence that will meet future needs of users • Choose a social network site

– Go where your users are – Take a poll or conduct a survey – Reason for conducting poll & Educate users – Look at the features offered – Identify subject specific, profession, region

Planning for SNS Use by Library

• Initiate the process & get it approved – Management, staff

• Encourage staff & user environment • Prepare policies- social media policies • Think of the services you can offer • Create profiles & services that interest users • Keep up with the changes

Plan to Market & Promote Effectively • Need to reach out to as many as possible • Integrate with library marketing plan • Develop marketing plan

– Know your users – Know your library

• Update Library Brand Identity • Combine push & pull marketing techniques • Create social marketing campaign

– User-centric, offer value, feel & experience, interactive, memorable, shareable, keeping it up

Best Practices to Follow • Follow friendly etiquette

– Let users choose libraries & librarians as friends • Use proper tone, language and content • Blend professional with personal

– Use separate account for library & personal – Take care of privacy issues

• Engage in reactive services – Engage students to seek services

• Engage in proactive services – Ubiquitous librarian – Offer services never seen before

Assess-Impact, Participation & Success

• Assessment is must • Money, time, effort, other resources spent • Identify tools & techniques to assess • Use quantitative & qualitative measures

– Monitor usage statistics – Take surveys – Hold focus group discussions – Informal communications – Initiate studies & other methods

• Set the goals & achieve them

Issues, Concerns, Challenges… • Many feel libraries do not have a role in social

networking • Libraries are places for learning & information • Requires time & resources • Not very heavily used • Students may not be eager to communicate with library staff on Facebook, Google+ etc. • Getting users to treat librarians as friends- a

challenge • These sites can be only compliment • Users may not like the presence of library on SN

Issues, Concerns, Challenges • Hard to maintain regular posting & updates • No guarantee of how long these tools will remain • More useful for librarians than libraries • Focus more providing online services using library

website • Need to do a proper study & then step in • Mastering & keeping with technology • Engaging users (staff and students) in using social

networking tools • Achieving an informal yet presentable tone of

communication with students

Future Developments • Increase in global social connections • Providing more services • Access to core features • Integrating other social tools • SNS will be around for some time to come • New SNS in new form may come • More people connected with SNS • Libraries will have to make use of this opportunity

To sum up… – SN sites are beneficial in

• promoting library services • interacting with users • communicating within internal staff

– Benefits are more than the cost involved – Provide new platform to reach out users – Important to see users response before introducing – These SN sites are evolving rapidly & will get better day-by-day – Important for libraries to seek new avenues & therefore consider

benefits of using these tools – Face the challenges & place library in centre place of these

technological developments

Thank you!!