Reasons why libraries should be on social media

Some of the reasons why libraries should use social media are; community, education, marketing, communication and information sharing. Some of these reasons offer libraries the same benefits. The social media technology that libraries are using include are; Facebook, twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, blogger, Flickr, LinkedIn and podcasts. Other tools that are similar to social media such as ‘ask a librarian’ are also used in libraries. The blog entry by Dankowski shows how libraries choose social media tools based on the content type and whether it meets the organisations goals. (Dankowski, 2013, para. 4).

Community-  

The state library of New South Wales, the Richmond–Tweed Regional Library and the Southern Cross University (SCU) library all use Facebook. (See appendix 1). To create a community environment using Facebook the three libraries have made their Facebook pages personal. This was achieved by frequent postings about the library and events, content that interest’s patrons and showing people how the library can benefit them. (“Three Reasons for Libraries to Use Social Media,” 2013, para. 2).

Education-    

The state library of N.S.W and the SCU library use social media to help with the education of library patrons and university students. This had been done using YouTube, Vimeo and podcasts. By using these social media tool the libraries are able to share learning resources, offer education in new ways so as to increase the information retention of students and use social media tools to increase knowledge gathering.

Marketing-    

The three libraries are able to use social media technology like Facebook, blogger and Flickr to increase the marketing of their libraries. The libraries are using marketing with social media to promote the library. Academic libraries use this to increase enrolment and public libraries use marketing to increase membership and promote library events.

Communication-      

The libraries use social media to improve the communication between the library staff and patrons. This has been done by using all the social media tools in the comparison tables, except MySpace. (See appendix 1). The ‘ask a librarian’ tool that many libraries now employ has helped staff and patrons communicate with each other.

Information Sharing-            

All the libraries mentioned in the appendix use social media to share information. The article in ASIST (American Society for Information Science and Technology) shows that “Knowledge sharing on Facebook can attract highest volume of user responses for libraries.” (Yu-Ting Chen, Kai-Wah Chu & Xu. 2012, p. 8).

References

Dankowski, T. (2013). How libraries are using social media. In American Libraries. Retrieved from http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/article/how-libraries-are-using-social-media

Home: State library of new south wales. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/

Richmond tweed regional library. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.rtrl.nsw.gov.au/site/index.php

Southern cross university. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://scu.edu.au/

Three Reasons for Libraries to Use Social Media. (2013). Retrieved from http://designerlibrarian.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/three-reasons-for-libraries-to-use-social-media/

Yu-Ting Chen, D., Kai-Wah Chu, S., & Xu, S. (2012). How do libraries use social networking sites to interact with users. ASIST, 1-10. Retrieved from https://www.asis.org/asist2012/proceedings/Submissions/85.pdf


Appendix 1.

 

Comparison table	New South Wales State Library   http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/	Richmond-Tweed Regional Library   http://www.rtrl.nsw.gov.au/site/index.php	Southern Cross University Library   http://scu.edu.au/library/
Facebook	×	×	×
Twitter	×		×
MySpace
YouTube or Vimeo	×		×
Blogger	×		×
Flickr	×
LinkedIn			×
Podcasts	×
Ask a Librarian	×		×