Wendy Abbott, Jessie Donaghey, Joanna Hare and Peta Hopkins The perfect storm: the convergence of social, mobile and photo technologies in libraries
Looking at libraries’ use of Instagram and photosharing. Identified 74 libraries in April/May 2013 – seems to be early days compared to Facebook. Broke down to a few special libraries (eg Smithsonian) but mostly public (slight majority) and academic.
Survey sent to 65 libraries that could find contacts for, 29 responded. 15 agreed to individualised followup and 10 in fact followed up. Also used Nitrogram to monitor 20 library Instagram account over 4 weeks. Took ten most-ilked images from Nitrogram images – turned out that identity and affective were more important than functional images.
Libraries don’t target specific groups – just anyone and everyone with Instagram account.
Issues: having trouble coming up with content to share. Some found it hard to share responsibility among staff since it’s a mobile platform; also issues editing images. Most libraries use staff personal equipment. Public libraries more likely to use employer equipment.
Most libraries share across multiple platforms. Found visual content got better engagement than verbal updates.
Less than 50% provided training – usually self-directed or in-house social media training.
Uncertainty of how much to follow/interact with students. Would be good if there were norms!
UCLA Powell image of tree that fell down, with Harry Potter spin because undergrads often refer to library as Hogwarts – very individualised to their population.
Emily Carr Uni library use same background for all images to create cohesive style
Public Libraries of Singapore – pets with books
Los Angeles County Public Library – connect with shared love of local sports team
Melbourne University Library – dolls in library
Some have very specific uses – eg educating re cuts to library budgets, or promoting maker space, or promoting photo archives.
“Library selfies (and shelfies)” – used to construct identity. Often want to construct friendly identity for library.
Thinking about goals:
- what your message is
- think about your target audience overall and how that might differ per image
- how you want to engage your audience
- how you’ll evaluate
- how the images will be used and where they’ll appear
Q: Any licensing issues?
A: Not an issue for us because creating own images. Used a Creative Commons image once – just add attribution over the top or underneath so not an issue.
Q: Would some places have issues with their PR office?
A: Didn’t cover in their research because only surveyed places that already had accounts.
Kathleen Smeaton and Kate Davis Is it Tweet-worthy? Privacy in a time of sharing
“Content forwarding” for retweeting without adding own content/analysis/critique, and for conference tweeting of the “Kate just said” variety.
52 participants completed survey, all in full. 32 consented to being followed via social media for a week – actually only chose 12. Respondents from students, graduates, deputy university librarian. Most had one account, a few had more than two. Most self-reported lower than they actually tweeted. Likewise self-reported professional tweeting as higher than actually tweeted. 64% said would tweet on controversial topics. 85% identify profession in profile – important part of online identity. 22% identify org in profile and 50% identify in tweets.
Tweets on controversial topics almost always liberal. Are there few conservative librarians or are they just very quiet? OTOH mostly tweeting about controversial topics were retweets, not original tweets – evidence of some tentativeness.
Approaches to tweeting can change over time, often more relaxed once involved in tweeting community. Work and life collide – unless deliberately separate identities they merge together. “Context collapse” can be a concern when associate yourself with organisation. Many tweet personal beliefs; many tweet for organisation on own personal account. What are the impacts on governance? Most tweeting librarians are wise to risks and take a commonsense response. Organisations need an appropriate flexible policy in place – loosen up and trust professionalism of staff.
Lots of livetweeting, forwarding content. Two thirds of professional content was content forwarding. 15 tweets from 4 participants gave a professional opinion on something. Unwilling to put forward a professional opinion even if willing to raise controversial non-library topics. Is it safer to talk about politics than library policy?
86% of tweets were replies to a conversation. Building relationships. Some only tweeted professionally with no tea-table banter. “Informers” share information with goal of cultivating followers and relationships, while “Me-formers” share info about themselves. Not everyone wants to indulge in disclosure about shoes and cats – but this is valuable for building relationships. Disclosure seems to be the main catalyst for conversation.
Useful professional tool, perhaps because of personal discussions.