This was my session – here are my slides – enjoy! Look at the slides, and read this person’s notes, and you will get a good feel for the discussion.
Social Media Strategy & Goals
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Digital Space
Nate Hill, Web Librarian, San Jose Public Library
Chris Noll, Noll & Tam Architects
Slide on the screen:
Because of the Internet, access to:
Books and other documents have gone from Read to Read/Write
Photo and video output has gone from View to View/Edit
Music and other audio has gone from Listen to Listen/Remix
Nate is introducing the topic of libraries starting to support content creation, and the models behind that.
Chris:
Contra Costa has used vending machines in shopping malls, etc. Washington County is using reserve boxes.
Boston Chinatown Storefront Library – community driven library
Houston – small small branch…
DC – Kiosk branches…
Greenbridge Library – took a community center, and developed part of it into a library
Idea Stores in London. Mix up libraries, cafes, etc.
Morgan Hill Library – self checkout, check in, self help holds, etc – very self-driven
Nate:
talking about the Digital Public Library or America project and their beta sprint. Realized we will still need physical spaces to create digital content.
LibraryLab idea:
broken into modules like audio and video creation, scanning, collaboration, etc
Chris: talking about creating furniture for these creative types of spaces …
Give people access to tools. Some libraries check out tools or musical instruments. Why not video cameras, microphones, etc?
Why not have design tools – desktop publishing, CAD/CAM tools, 3D printers, etc? The library could support these things.
They want this project to happen … but need funding, etc.
Libraries and Learning Communities – Lee Rainie
three revolutions Pew has noticed
1. Broadband – 78% of adults use internet, 62% have broadband at home
- Blog as a category is being obliterated. Most people don’t know they’re reading a blog – ie., a blog on a news site – people think they’re reading the news.
- 13% of users are on twitter. But – those people are highly influential
2. Mobile phones – 84% (I think) of adults use mobile phones
- There are actually more phones than people in the US.
- 59% of adults connect to the internet through mobile. phones, laptops, tablets.
- 35% of adults are smart phone owners.
- laptops are more prevalent than desktops
- 12% of adults have ebook readers
- 9% have tablets
- Still an elite audience
- Hypercoordination – we don’t plan specific meet ups – we keep it vague, then use our new tools to figure out the meet up on the go.
3. social networking
- half of all adults in this country, 73% of teens – use social networking sites
- people ever age 65 – fast growing group. They’re online, friending their children, expecting photos yesterday…
important in 3 ways
1. sentries of information. people log on to their social networks first thing in the morning, rather than read the news.
2. evaluators of information – when people find confusing info, they turn to their social networks first. I’ve certainly seen and done that. asking if it’s true, and how much weight should I give it
- librarians – think about being nodes in people’s networks… dang. we need to be there!
3. serve as audiences – we are all performers. we are showing off for our audiences in a way.
Final thoughts about the futre:
1. What’s the future of knowledge
- learning is now a process
- old way – learning was objective and fixed, meant to be found
- subjective and provisional now – sense of flow, a process, you learn together, change together. a need for vigilance to watch and stay with how knowledge is evolving
- learners now create knowledge. if you are participating in the learning experience, and creating things, you learn more.
- knowledge is organized ecologically – disciplines are mixing
- we learn best actively doing and managing our own learning. We have to be active agents in the learning process.
- our intelligence is now based on our learning communities, rather than on our individual abilities
- you are as smart as your network – as long as you are willing to ask them.
2. what’s the future of reference expertise
- embedded librarian model. librarians embed themselves in the community, rather than making community come find them.
- we are on call for just in time information.
- we can “bond” with the community. we can be nodes in people’s networks
- we help people know about the broader picture.
- We are often he first in our communities to learn social media … so we are the teachers of this to the community.
- aggregator and curators of information.
3. what’s the future of public technology
- hard to say – most of us would not have seen the iPhone right before it came out, for example. What we do know is that this technology will be changing rapidly and we really don’t know what’s around the corner.
- The era of big data – sensors, cars, tweets, etc – making lots of data. How do we make sense of this “big data?” Librarians will possibly be asked to help figure this out. Mastering big data and analytics is important.
- Different types of screens, post-pc world, more broadband, etc. No one int he expert world really knows either.
4. what’s the future of learning spaces
- attuned to new kinds of learners
- patrons are more likely to be self starters. They know where to go first – checking with their social networks, don’t need formal learning structures
- collaborations are important.
- value of amateur experts is rising.
- amateur/expert scientists – Smithsonian has embraced the amateur community.
- peer to peer health communities too – we are going beyond our doctors to our networks.
5. what’s the future of library as community anchor institution
- ALA put out a guidebook on these issues – check it out (will be mentioned in Lee’s slides, but his slide deck froze up)
- how much of your work is aimed at helping individuals vs helping communities
- are libraries places for individual study or group based study
- collection library or creation library?
- portal or archive?
Pew will be doing a 3-year study on libraries and communities. This will be HUGE.
Social Media signage at TopekaLibrary
You’ve seen those “follow us on Facebook” signs at stores and restaurants, right? Or heard a radio dj mention following their radio station’s Twitter account on-air?
Guess what? Libraries can do the same thing!
As a first experiment, my library recently placed two “follow us” signs in our building – one at the main entrance to the library, and one on our administrative office doors (shown in the photo).
Why do this? Easy – it’s a relatively unobtrusive way to tell our customers that we have a social media presence, and that we want them to follow us. It’s also a way to link the physical to the digital – by promoting our digital presence (i.e., our Facebook Page) in our physical presence (i.e., our building).
Where else could we put these signs?
- Our meeting rooms (maybe a stand-up card on a table)
- Our cafe (stand-up card there, too)
- In the stacks, with our books
- As a background on our public PC monitors (we might do this)
One thing we can improve on – Kathryn Greenhill mentioned this to me recently – when you make a sign advertising your social media presence, make sure to include a URL or at least your social media name. Otherwise, people might not be able to find you (we were talking about this particular sign)! For example, my library’s full name is Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library … but we’re simply topekalibrary on social media sites. We’ll add that on the next version of the signs.
And a funny – watch the arrangement of your icons! We almost put the Facebook icon first … until someone in our Creative Group mentioned that we were spelling “F You[tube].” Certainly not our intent to tell customers to “F You!”
Like these ideas? Come hear more on November 2 at my ALA Techsource webinar on Facebook Pages! Make sure to register!
The Thank You Economy
I just read The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk. Good read. Here’s an interesting thought I got out of it that relates to libraries.
On page 53, he writes about Nielson conducting a study on what drives consumer trust. 70% of people said they turn to family and friends for advice when making purchasing decisions.
Then Gary says this: “The ROI of your relationship with your mother is going to be much higher than that of the one you have with a good friend. Both, however, are more valuable than the one you have with an acquaintance, which trumps the relationship you have with a stranger. Without social media, you and your customer are relegated to strangers; with it, depending on your efforts, you can potentially upgrade your relationship to that of casual acquaintances, and even, in time, to friends. The power of that relationship can go so far as to convert a casual browser into a committed buyer, or a buyer into an advocate.” (pg 54-55).
This idea of turning strangers into friends works great in libraries, too. The goal is simply this – become casual acquaintances, or even friends, with our customers. We have done that for years in our buildings – I’d say that’s business as usual.
Online? We can do the same thing by using social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. Start friending people in your community. Your customers. That’s how you start turning strangers into friends … and into customers of your library.
Here’s what Gary did – he created Twitter alerts for wine words like Merlot. When someone had a question about that term, he answered it … and started growing a reputation about actually knowing something about wine.
We know stuff too – we are librarians, after all! Use a tool like Twitter. Do a zip code search for your local area or a town search … then add some words to that search, like book, reading, etc. Or business terms … or whatever the hot issues in your town happen to be.
Then start answering questions or making comments as they seem relevant. Point to your stuff, like the book that answers it, when it makes sense. Be helpful … like you already are in your building.
It’s a way to get out in the community without actually leaving the air conditioning!
Pic by Steven Rosenbaum
