Social Software in Libraries December 1, 2006

Now that I have reached the end of this LIS757 course on Social Software & Libraries I have a much better overall picture of social software’s place in libraries. First of all, I feel it has a place. Secondly, I have to agree with my colleague, Colleen, that libraries must always examine their motives and strive for best practices when implementing any social software tools in their libraries.

On the subject of favorites, my personal selection of social software tools for libraries to implement includes a blog, RSS feeds and IM reference. Blogging adds some personality to your library website and it also provides you with an opportunity to promote your services and to teach information literacy. Most importantly, it provides the patrons with the opportunity to respond to your posts, therefore encouraging interaction and fostering relationships. This ultimately helps us to better serve our patrons. Blogging does not take a great amount of effort once you get the hang of it and you can even split up the duties amongst multiple staff members.

RSS feeds allow patrons to subscribe to updates on library events, new material, blog posts and subject-specific information. The important feature is that they actively request the information from you, and then make no further effort to receive it. One disadvantage is that RSS is not mainstream, so I recommend that libraries invest time in educating their patrons about RSS feeds if they are going to invest time in producing them.

I recommend IM reference to libraries simply because it is attractive to many library patrons, mostly the younger ones. It is low-cost and complimentary to other reference services, but does not replace them.

I think that the social software that produces results for the least effort - the low-hanging fruit as Amanda calls it - is Flickr. You simply upload a few photos, link a feed to your website and you have quickly spiced up your library web pages with ‘live’ content and have made it more visually appealing at the same time. However, I don’t think Flickr has much information literacy value. That is why I still recommend blogs and RSS feeds over Flickr even though they require more effort and expertise - they help us achieve our overarching purpose of educating our patrons and not simply attracting them (but hopefully do this as well).

The benefits of implementing a MySpace or Facebook presence depends on profile of your user group, of course. If you serve a lot of youth then I would recommend developing a MySpace presence that works hard at promoting your youth resources. Likewise for University students and Facebook. I would caution libraries not to simply create a profile page that goes to waste - you must update it regularly and communicate your services well. Otherwise it will just look pathetic.

I have not yet mentioned Social Bookmarking, Wikis, or Podcasting, because they are neither my favorite nor easy to implement for libraries, in my opinion. Social Bookmarking appeals to me, as an independent internet user, because I like to sort web pages I come across in order to find them more easily in the future. However, I’m not convinced that the average library patron would become interested in a library’s del.icio.us account, and I think that RSS feeds and Blogs would be more effective tools with which to provide information literacy training to our patrons. Therefore I do not recommend it as highly as blogging, feeds and IM reference. The idea of adding tagging features to library catalogues also appeals to me since I believe the average user would benefit from this additional searching method. However, I do not recommend this to all libraries at this point because it is a very huge project to embark on. But once it is simple, I would expect everyone to jump on the bandwagon!

Wikis may have their place in some library situations, and I will still keep this technology in my mind for a future library project, if it strikes me as the best way to do something. However, Wikis strike me as a lot of effort to implement - I can picture patrons being very reluctant to contribute content. On the other hand, I can see it being very beneficial for internal library projects amongst library staff or librarians in general (as in the case of our final class project!). Therefore I do not recommend Wikis in general to libraries, but neither do I recommend against them if they appear to fit your need perfectly.

Podcasting is a fun, unique way to get your message out to patrons. But it is also a lot of work to prepare content and stage a recording of high quality. Since Podcasts of mediocre quality cause more harm than good, I would not recommend this social software to most libraries. But I really love seeing (er, hearing) it done right!

I would caution all libraries that in order to effectively introduce social software technology to your patrons, you must first educate your staff about the benefits of the tools. They should be as excited about it as you are! Your project will fall flat without the support of those who are the face of the library to most library patrons.

That’s it for this week. To my classmates: see you on the Wiki.