Instructional Screencast

For my instructional screencast, I chose to create an account with Tumblr. Tumblr is essentially a blog that works on Twitter or text-messaging speed, allowing users to share virtually anything (URLs, photographs, videos, music, quotes, chat logs, and text) with their peers. I have had many teen volunteers at the library tell me about this social media tool (and scoff at my lack of knowledge regarding it). It was relatively simple to sign up for and I could see how teens would enjoy the endless customization available at the website, as well as the ability to quickly make posts and share information with their friends.

Library Training Video

This video was by the 3M Company that produces Automatic Handling Machine Systems. These systems allow patrons to check in their own return items and have them immediately off their records.

While the video was indeed informative, I doubt that it would catch the eye or keep the attention of anyone looking for videos on the topic. There could have been an introduction to the library it was being used or just a brief introduction to what the video was going to entail, rather than simply the company's information. The lack of any dialogue, sound effects, or music, made it slow paced. While it was nice to see the machine working smoothly, as someone who works at a library who has an AHMS, the fact that there were only three sorting bins and a single pusher to sort the books made me want to see a larger AHMS training video, or at least contain a larger human element such as staff using the machine in the back room as well as the outside patrons using it.

To improve the video, I would have added dialogue or have a staff member interact with the "patron" to make it a more interactive video that actually has a customer service aspect. I also would have shown how the bins were separated from the machine and what happens to the outside check in station when the bins are removed.

Online Communities Challenges

Online communities, if created successfully, gathers a core of members that are active and interact with each other on a regular basis. Like the need for immediacy in instant messaging and social networking, online communities need regular updates in order to keep the interest of their users. One of the main challenges of creating an online community that is successful is ensuring that the target audience will actually be interested in the subject enough in order to create an account and log in day after day. Some subjects for online communities, I believe, are more successful than others. Those circulating around an individual's own work (writing / artwork / crafts) are very popular because users can show their individuality and comment on the work of others. Two such communities are DeviantArt and Flickr. DeviantArt allows users to create their own scrapbook of art as well as follow other artists and join 'groups,' quite like Facebook.

Online communities in libraries, I believe, require another special touch in that it has to be actively promoted at events that correspond to it, as well as through normal promotion such as flyers, bookmarks, and notices on the library webpage. Topics of interest would have to be polled either through circulation statistics, a survey, or another method such as recognizing that the teen book club is an extremely popular event and that there is call for a more often method of sharing book information with other people, rather than a weekly or biweekly grouping. The challenge with this is the same as with any online community, in that there is a need to create a strong user base of core members who will keep the ball rolling. While staff members can be part of this user-base, like other social networking tools in libraries, staff need to be sure that patrons feel able to give in their input and that it is not only a place for announcements rather than for communication between staff and patrons as well as patrons and anyone else who is interested in the subject.

User-Generated Content in Libraries

--Where do you see user-generated content providing value for libraries and how could it be collected?--

What I see as being the most valuable user-generated content for libraries is the addition to library catalogs that enable patrons to add reviews of materials in the collection, somewhat like Amazon. This would provide both the ability of users to rate through 1-5 stars as well as write a review that would be approved prior to adding it to the catalog in order to ensure that it is "proper." Through adding user-generated reviews, patrons will feel like they have an impact on their libraries and that their opinions matter. This would also create a sense of community, in that the catalog could become almost like a social networking tool if reviews can be categorized through the reviewer's name. Thus individuals could "view" a reviewer's profile and the items that they have reviewed and which they liked and disliked. While I am unsure how it would exactly play out on a library's online public access catalog, the ability for library patrons to provide input and generate content that reaches out to fellow patrons not only improves the library's holdings, it also ensures that the library is the hub of the online community as well as the physical community.

Patrons could also provide tags for items that would work alongside the subject headings of catalog entries. While this could become confusing, it would allow for user-generated language to provide tags that catalogers may not have thought about. This is especially true for items that fall within multiple categories or have a specific jargon description. While I do not believe that tags will supplant subject headings, I do think that they could increase the richness of each item's record in the system.

References

Tay, A. (2009). "Libraries and Crowdsourcing - 6 Examples." Musings about Librarianship.

Barriers to Internal Collaboration

With numerous tools available, such as del.icio.us and wikis, there are still possible barriers for effective internal collaboration within organizations. The main barriers are the comfort level of staff regarding technology and the workplace atmosphere, which includes the feelings of the management toward internal collaboration tools.

While an internal collaboration tool like wikis are a perfect technology for collaborating and combining the knowledge of multiple staff members, if the staff are not comfortable working with this technology, it will not be used to its full potential. However, this could easily be remedied through tutorials or technology classes that show staff how to use wikis and how it could help them. Similarly, if staff do not want to share their knowledge with one another and prefer to be the "go-to" person for specific questions, then this would also become a barrier to sharing organizational knowledge and allowing it to be available to all.

Regarding tagging tools like del.icio.us or simply having a set bookmark list available on all reference computers, a barrier could be the lack of a set number of tags that allow for easy retrieval. Staff participation could be another barrier, as some staff members who are more comfortable with technology would submit more links while others submit none. Again, showing the staff how the tagging and bookmarking works would erase most of this barrier.

Lastly, if management does not have positive feelings towards internal collaboration tools and do not believe it is a viable use of time, there will most likely not be a positive atmosphere in the organization for staff to add their knowledge to the wiki or del.icio.us links. Staff would have to do this out of office hours in their free time which is not conducive to having the majority of the staff participate.

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Kelly, W. (2009). Corporate culture, not technology, drives internal collaboration. Retrieved from http://gigaom.com/collaboration/corporate-culture-not-technology-drives-online-collaboration/.

Wilding, G. AskNow's del.icio.us useful resources. Retrieved from http://www.nla.gov.au/pub/gateways/issues/91/story01.html.

Marketing Critique of San Francisco Public Library

Marketing Critique of San Francisco Public Library

The San Francisco Public Library system is comprised of numerous branches. These branches allow the SFPL to serve a large population and, similarly, their online presence allows for an even greater patronage.

What is the library doing to market themselves online?

The SFPL markets itself online through its main website, a Twitter page, a Facebook page, numerous blogs, and podcasts and videos of library programs. The main SFPL website is clean cut, informative, and eye-catching. Its Library Highlights section allows for patrons to browse through numerous events in a visual manner, while the library services, events, and hours are clearly stated and navigable. The library catalog itself is highly reminiscent of an Internet information search that blends into the layout of the rest of the main website.

The library’s Teen and Children’s pages are designed in a specialized fashion that targets their intended audience and shows an attention to detail and design. While the Kid’s website could be confusing to navigate to some, that the hyperlinks are incorporated into the actual background design is reminiscent of wallpaper in a child’s room and was most likely designed with that in mind. In comparison, the Teen website is clean cut and almost too simple, with few images or interactive elements that teens may appreciate, such as a scrolling message feed, chat features, or simply images of the latest movies or CDs.

SFPL’s Twitter page is active almost daily, providing important information on events and programs to its 1,366 followers. The language and jargon used is casual and avoids the formally polite phrasing of many librarians who use social media tools. The Twitter page does not, however, contain many conversations with or responses to patrons.

Similarly, the library’s Facebook page is often updated and has numerous comments and “likes” to each announcement. It has a staggering 6,379 likes. What stood out was the amount of Information on SFPL, which also includes a “status” of whether the library is open or not. The Facebook page’s Discussion section is a good attempt at creating conversation between patrons but has not been updated for months. The Poll section is important tool in order to receive patron feedback in a manner that is easy to both receive and provide. The Library’s Teen Services Facebook page makes many announcements which are image heavy but they do not update daily and only have 132 likes. What catches the eye the most is the photography folder of Teen Librarians, which consists of cartoon drawings of the SFPL’s young adult librarians. For the patrons who interact with these librarians, it must be fun to associate and recognize their favorite staff members.

The number of blogs published by the SFPL staff are numerous (21 in total), with the majority being specific branch blogs and only a handful consisting of specific subject blogs such as the Filipino American Center Blog and LGBT Resources Blog. While having so many blogs is rather staggering and looks good as a whole, they may not be updated as often due to spreading the staff so thinly between 21 blogs. Instead, they could have had a main blog for the entire system, including branch-related announcements (perhaps with accompanying photographs or caricatures to identify the branch) and events with separate subject-related blogs.

The SFPL also has a number of podcasts and videos of the events that occur at the branches, such as author visits, book readings, and branch openings. The podcasts revolve around book readings and panel discussions.

What are they doing right in their marketing efforts?

The SFPL system is reaching out through multiple social media tools as well as through its traditional website and media collection. The Kids’ library page especially shows that the library is marketing towards its youth population through the design of the website and the interactivity, even in the main categories that it chooses to embed into the front page.
Both Facebook and Twitter provide information in a timely and easy-to-access manner as well as provide a professional and modern face of the library online. Similarly, the blogs discuss interesting and important aspects of modern life, targeting audiences that may need extra support or information or even stories about people who are experiencing the same issues.

Providing specialized and targeted information is what the SFPL system is doing extremely well, in that their blogs and their Facebook pages target specific audiences and cater the announcements and news to them. This is especially important for those of differing generations who may digest and search for information in different ways. For example, the teen Facebook page is designed differently than the SFPL main Facebook page, in that it is more graphic heavy with briefer announcements.

Where are they falling short?

While the SFPL system does reach out with social media tools, it does not appear to be creating much conversation with its patrons, current or future. One of the greatest strengths of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, let alone blogs, is to create conversation and dialog between patrons and library staff, or even patrons and other patrons. Conversation can also include comments, which the Facebook page does have, but the Twitter page seems to lack. For a previous research paper, the American Eagle Outfitters Twitter page was researched and there were many tweets along the lines of “@customer: Those jeans look great!” or “@customer: I agree with you regarding that event.” While they may appear banal messages, it shows interaction between staff and customers in a manner that is conversational and sounds like dialog between individuals in a face-to-face encounter.

The blog effort, as previously mentioned, could be condensed into fewer but more often updated blogs. Keeping a high level of activity, which includes keeping up-to-date with recent vents in the world and respective communities is especially important to a library that serves such a broad populace.

What do you think of their branding efforts? Have they build a strong and consistent brand online?

While the SFPL does have a few items that they could work on in order to strengthen their online branding efforts, what they do have at the moment is a strong and consistent foundation for its brand name. With the Facebook and Twitter pages already up and running, it is only a simple step to improve their outreach and marketing. Their blogs provide a human voice of their staff along with the extremely humanized (through caricatures) teen librarian population. By making their staff identifiable through blog posts and rosters, SFPL shows the diversity of their members as well as the population they serve.

If the library hired you as a social media marketing consultant, what would you suggest to them?

If hired as a social media marketing consultant for the SFPL system, I would firstly congratulate them on their outreach thus far and state their previous accomplishments. Then I would recommend a redesign of their Teen website in order to make it as individual and eye-catching as the Kids page. Providing a Teen Facebook page does not allow the website page to be less impacting.

Regarding the Facebook and Twitter pages, I would attempt to increase conversation between patrons and staff members either by increasing the number of Discussion threads or polls, as well as changing the tone of the announcements into one that prompts response. Questions such as whether or not the patrons enjoyed the finished event and would want more of the same type or if the patrons enjoyed reading / watching / listening the newest release of a book / DVD / CD. In Twitter, I would prompt proactive interactions with patrons, either through searching for people discussing libraries or asking for events that the SFPL sponsors. Tweeting directly to these people creates conversation and shows that the library is fine with open and direct dialog. By doing this, it shows that anybody could Tweet the library and get a response, which opens up the option of the SFPL’s Twitter account as another reference source. This could, however, cause the Twitter page to become deluged so it would be important to create a balance between announcements and discussion in order to ensure that the announcements continue at the same pace.

Prompting patrons to submit media and ensure a Web 2.0 experience is important, especially in trying to make the library’s online presence more than just the online face of the library. Making announcements about library events is not enough. If enough communication occurs between patrons and staff and the patrons themselves, the library can become a hub of the community both online and offline.

Tagging Content

What are some of the weaknesses of tagging for making content more findable?

While tagging content in order to make it more findable does seem like a good idea, especially with the advent of and overarching Facebook photograph "tags" mindset, there are some problems that can turn up when tagging is not monitored. One of the main weaknesses of tagging is that of jargon and word choice, in that there are so many different words that could be used to describe one single item. For example, if someone finds an article on the usefulness of social networking tools in libraries and tags it under "Facebook," someone who searches for "social networking tools" may not find it. Similarly, instead of using a too-specific tag, an overly general tag could also result in missed search results. Because there are so many possible word choices for items, it is possible to not be able to find what you are looking for or only find a limited amount of search results.

Another weakness of tagging is that individuals could mis-tag items either through misidentification or in an attempt to attract attention. While malicious tagging could be easily monitored by an active community, quite like malicious editing of open-wikis, misidentification could cause more problems as it would require more time to identify that it is indeed incorrect and to correctly identify it.

Libraries in Facebook?

"A big difference exists between being where our patrons are and being useful to our patrons where they are. A profile should be designed to offer something to patrons, so they will keep coming back to it." - Farkas, 2007, 122

While I have not owned a MySpace page or interacted much with it as a social networking tool, I do have a Facebook account and use it every so often in order to keep in touch with school friends. While libraries may seem out of place on Facebook, a place for individuals to meet one another and keep track of what their friends are up to, I believe that libraries do in fact fit in to this new and constantly evolving world of Facebook.

Because Facebook is a social networking website, it can work off the theory that "one person's connections to other people are more important than the person's attributes. Following this logic, people can be judged, for better or worse, by their friends and acquaintances" (Farkas, 2007, 110). Being able to make these connections between individuals, libraries can also work off this relationship by making its presence known and reaching out to individuals through services and event announcements. I believe a library that does reach out to its patrons through Facebook not only provides an opportunity to understand their patrons' wants and needs (through their likes/dislikes) but also provides a location for patrons to give feedback to the library or request certain items for the collection.

While Facebook is starting to lean the way of Twitter with profile "status" notifications and the news-ticker "Feed" page, I do not believe keeping track of patrons' statuses will be a time-worthy method of discovering what is important to patrons. Instead, noting their favourite activities or events that they did participate in could be one method. Another would be to, after creating a sufficient "fan base," to make a status announcement asking "What would you like to see the library doing" while providing context, such as teen events, adult events, etc. Patrons could respond through comments in order to provide their own feedback. This sort of response of course requires patrons believing that their feedback will be studied and, possibly, applied.

A library Facebook page could also provide after-the-fact coverage of events, such as a status announcement of the event photograph album being uploaded. This would provide a location for patrons to view photographs of themselves that they did not take and perhaps tag themselves in the photographs and provide feedback through comments. If patrons could also upload their own photographs or send them to the library Facebook page through a message, it would also show that the librarian in charge is interested in what patrons have to offer while also having a chance to filter possibly questionable photographs. This retrospective coverage also provides advertising for the next event of a similar nature.

A library with a strong presence on Facebook requires patron interaction, or else a Facebook profile will simply sit and blare announcements to the librarian making the posts. The same amount of marketing that librarians devote to promoting events and services needs to also be applied to the library's Facebook page, whether it is the form of bookmarks in holds, an announcement on the website, or posters in the teen areas. However, once the Facebook page is working and patrons regularly check and provide feedback on the announcements, it can be a great aid to library outreach and marketing.

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Farkas, M. G. (2007). Social software in libraries: Building collaboration, communication, and community online. New Jersey: Information Today, Inc.

RSS Feeds in Libraries

"For those not yet convinced or still puzzled about Real Simple Syndication, consider that RSS removes the burden of having to do regular, static Web searching to keep current in your fields of interest. RSS allows for steady, dynamic Web content streaming into one location for your perusal, freeing up time to do other things."

-- Randy Reichardt

For an online internship, my supervisor asked me to subscribe to numerous green technology-themed blogs and websites via Google Reader and write blog posts based on subjects or themes that I found interesting. It's only until recently that I realized how easy Google Reader made following so many varied blogs and how fast it was to catch up on the latest news in a subject that I knew little about. The only downside was that a few of the feeds consisted of 100+ posts a day, which really was not conducive to browsing. But the ease of subscribing to the particular feeds and browsing daily through the newest posts through a relatively simple format was what stood out the most to me.

Similarly, libraries should be able to incorporate RSS feeds into both their outreach to patrons as well as their staff's own knowledge base. RSS feeds can be used by patrons to subscribe to content that interests them, whether it is about the newest items added into the library's collection, upcoming programs and events, or book-lists of recommended reading on a specific subject. Libraries that provide RSS feeds to their patrons acknowledge the growing important of Real Simple Syndication and the ease of browsing that it provides for patrons. While it would be nice if patrons visited the website every day in order to see what new events have been posted, it would not be practical for the patrons themselves. Allowing a feed for upcoming events could increase patron attendance by making it easier for them to keep up to date with what is happening at the library and allowing them to make time for it in their schedules.

RSS feeds for catalog searches and for patron library accounts are two other ways that libraries could incorporate this technology into their service. For example, the Seattle Public Library provides a RSS feed for a catalog search which will subsequently provide new materials matching the search criteria into their aggregator (Farkas, 2007). I could see many uses for this sort of feed, as many patrons have a specific subject that they are interested in and rather than visit the library and check the shelves, they could be notified when something new comes in that will be of interest to them and put a hold on it. This would also be faster than subscribing to the New Materials feed and browsing through it in its entirety. Lastly, while the library I currently work at already provides email reminders for library account updates, such as fines, arrived holds, and overdue items, RSS feeds that do this service would be helpful and save staff time.

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Farkas, M. G. (2007). Social software in libraries: Building collaboration, communication, and community online. New Jersey: Information Today, Inc.

Reichardt, R. Success story: RSS moves into the mainstream at the University of Alberta libraries. Library Connect, 3.2. Retrieved from http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/librariansinfo.librarians/lc030208.

Twitter in Libraries

"The stream is winding its way throughout the Web and organizing it by nowness.... So jump into the stream and let it carry you away. Or you can stand timidly on the banks until everyone else around you has already taken the plunge."

-- Schonfeld, 2009

The use of Twitter within a library or other information organization actually makes much more sense to me than the use of Twitter by an individual in order to contact friends. If said individual is a celebrity or needs to contact a large mass of people at the same time, then Twitter does work to the best effect. But I still am of the mind that Twittering about shopping in an American Eagle store has nothing to do with other people, unless they are supposed to meet me at said store.

A library, however, should be able to fully integrate the use of Twitter as a social media outreach tool to not only inform current library patrons of the newest information, events, and services, but reach out to under served or non-library-patrons. As stated in David Allen Kelly's article, Twitter can be used for normal event announcement, quite like a library's Facebook page. Also like Facebook and other social networking tools, Twitter allows libraries to promote materials or simply point to information that patrons may find pertinent. Unlike other tools, however, Twitter would allow libraries to search through and keep track of (via RSS feeds) the number of times "library" is brought up by other Twitter users, or other keywords that pertain to programs or services. Then the Twitter-librarian could respond to the user with a plug to that specific library service.

One of Kelly's examples was for a yoga program at the library whose user base was expanded through a local user search for the word "yoga" and an "@user:" response. I could see many uses of this sort of Twitter outreach for my library, to not only get the word out on an event through broadcast but to also search out for potential participants much like walking through the library and verbally advertising.

Lastly, while I had not heard of this aspect of Twitter previously, TwitPix allows for a visual continuation of the real-time stream of this social media tool. Being able to upload photographs from a smartphone directly onto the library's Twitter account of an event would one, make it easier for the librarian to keep up-to-date with photo-documentation and two, possibly attract nearby patrons to the event.

All in all, while I still am not a fan of "mundane Tweets," I do believe there is an untapped resource in Twitter for libraries.

Kelly, D. A. (2009, July 29). How your library may not be using Twitter but should. Retrieved from: http://kellyd.com/2009/07/29/how-your-library-may-not-be-using-twitter-but-should/.

Schonfeld, E. (2009, May 17). Jump into the stream. Retrieved from: http://techcrunch.com/2009/05/17/jump-into-the-stream/.

Exercise 2: Library Blogs Review

For this exercise, we had to subscribe to and read five library related blogs. The blogs were: In the Library with the Lead Pipe, Librarian's Commute, The Distant Librarian, Librarian by Day, and David Lee King. All five blogs were highly varied not only in the type of posts but also in the focus of the blog. In the Library with the Lead Pipe, for example, was a group-written blog which focused on overall themes that affect libraries. Their posts were personal in nature (using the first-person) and yet each post is of essay-length and peer reviewed, rather than a brief summary of an issue. For those who enjoy an in-depth view into issues such as the future of libraries in our uncertain times, this blog would be ideal. However, the length of each post could be daunting to some. The Librarian's Commute, on the other hand, had a much more personal nature due to it being written by a single individual. Nellums also writes about the changes in libraries, technology, and patron needs, but in a concise manner that is more her thoughts on the subject than academic in nature. The Distant Librarian, also a personal blog, follows suit with The Librarian's Commute. On the other hand, Pival focuses on technology such as RSS feeds, ebooks, apps, and screen-casting. His posts are brief and review or highlight technologies (or books about such technologies) that have relevance to library settings. Librarian By Day is another personal blog that favors short lists and internet memes that share information. Lastly, David Lee King also focuses on technology in libraries but also applies aspects of marketing to libraries and how they need to reach out to their patrons.

In the Library with the Lead Pipe, while amusing by title, was the driest of the lot with its long posts which did go into the most depth into topics that are indeed important to all libraries. On the other end of the spectrum, all the other blogs were more casual in length and prose as well as more personable. My own preference leans towards this end of the spectrum as I enjoy brevity and conciseness, especially if I am following multiple blogs in order to keep abreast of library news. It is also easier to decipher the gist of these blog posts in comparison to that of In the Library with the Lead Pipe.

In addition to these popular blogs, I subscribed to: Librarian.net, Ann Arbor District Library - AXIS, and Tame the Web. Librarian.net is Jessamyn West's blog that contains her thoughts on libraries and their importance. Her posts encompass a wide variety of subjects, from her personal activities to the use of social media tools by libraries during emergencies or the digital divide and highlighting particular individuals or events. Ann Arbor District Library's AXIS blog is a collaborative work from multiple library branches that focuses on and targets teens. The posts are brief in length and contain a multitude of hyperlinks as well as graphics regarding school, comics, books, reviews, and visiting authors and artists. Lastly, Michael Stephens' Tame the Web focuses on the relationship between libraries, patrons, and technology, writing of gaming in libraries, smart phones and videos as well as academia and job openings. Stephens' has the greatest diversity in post length as well as topic.

I believe that the main characteristics that make a library blog successful are consistent updates and knowing the target audience. Knowing the target audience includes aspects of post length, blog layout, jargon use, graphics, use of hyperlinks, and variety of topics. If the bloggers understand what their target audience want, then they are more likely to reach out to them successfully and provide the information that will be helpful to them. However, it is important to note that the amount of feedback received through comments and "likes" would vary along with the target audience, as teens may be more willing to comment on a blog than, say, seniors.

Blogging Libraries

"What are some of the things libraries should consider before starting a blog?"

As previously discussed, libraries need to enter the world of online social networking, whether it involves creating a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or a (number of) blogs. Not only does creating an online brand for a library entice new patrons through marketing techniques that highlight what the branch has to offer, an online presence will improve the human quality of the library website.

However, there are many things that need to be considered before your library whips out a blog. Farkas (2007) summarizes this succinctly: "What is the focus of your blog? What are your software needs?...What amount of interactivity do you want? How will you get people to read it?" (p. 19).

With Farkas' first point comes the question of how many blogs will the library make. Will there be an over-arching "Insert-library-name-here Blog" and, if so, will one person write it or will it be a collaborative effort? Or will there be multiple blogs targeting children, young adults, and seniors? Blogs can also target subjects rather than specific age groups, such as music and movie blogs or book review blogs. Of course, the number of staff members who are willing to participate in the blog project will also impact the focus and amount of library blogs. This will also effect how often the blog will be updated.

Software is not as much of an issue nowadays with the multitude of public blogging websites such as Blogger and Wordpress. Libraries will most likely not have the time to construct a library blog website. Hosting, however, is an issue. Rather than relying on outside organizations to host the library blog, it may be safer to keep it part of the main library website. For example, the San Mateo County Library website hosts its staff members' blog posts. This allows patrons to browse the catalog and almost seamlessly read staff posts.

Interactivity is an important aspect of planning a library blog. As shown on other social media tools, interactivity and creating conversation is one of the aspects of a successful tool. Blogs are not exempt and enabling patrons to comment not only allows for libraries to receive feedback but also provides a method of keeping of track of the blog readers. It also allows patrons to hold conversations with librarians and other patrons. However, libraries need to discuss whether comments will be filtered or if they will be posted instantly. Instant gratification (and instant posting) rather than the chance to have their comments filtered (and possible refused) seems like the more likely choice but then allows for the possibility of profanities or spam being shown to all viewers.

Lastly, after staff have decided on the focus, authors, platform, and interactivity of their soon-to-be blog, they must discuss how it will be marketed to their patrons. The library can send an email to patrons, print handouts for the circulation desk, make bookmarks to put into holds, and, of course, highlight it on the library web page (Farkas, 2007, 25-26).

Farkas, M. G. (2007). Social software in libraries: Building collaboration, communication, and community online. United States of America: Information Today, Inc.

Online Branding in Libraries

Most libraries do not delve as deeply into social media and networking tools as they could, thus preventing the composition of a strong and consistent online brand. This, of course, is not true for every single library, on the whole there is most likely more effective manners in building an online brand. Simply creating a Facebook page or Twitter account will not ensure use or followers.

Librarians and library staff need to reach out to their online patrons in the same manner that they perform outreach for the under served, in that if there is a Facebook page and Twitter account created, they need to get the word out. An announcement on the main library homepage that patrons can now follow events on Twitter or Facebook or to visit the library blog for story time events or author visits allows patrons to try out these social media tools.

Creating content and creating conversation are two steps that library staff need to do in order to manage the library brand. Having a diverse range of staff voices included in the online brand through blogs will show the diversity of the library itself and that it is able to serve varied populations. The blogs could target both children, young adults, adults, and seniors, or through subjects such as music, movies, book reviews, social events, etc. The use of photo documentation through websites such as Flickr and Twitpix augment the written descriptions and allow patrons to put faces and images to locations and events. Ensuring that staff blogs and photo albums have enough coverage and are easily visible on the main website is highly important.

As Balwani (2009) wrote in his article, social media tools are great for creating dialogue between a company and its consumers as well as being able to manage consumer feedback. My Starbucks Idea allowed users to submit suggestions which were then voted upon by other users. The cream of the crop were reviewed and the "Ideas in Action" blog follows up on whether or not the suggestions were implemented. This is a modern version, for libraries, of the oft ridiculed Suggestion Box. Unlike a Suggestion Box, which is seen as dropping a suggestion into a black hole with no hope of feedback or even a reply, a social media interactive website such as My Starbucks Idea allows for users to read the responses other patrons post as well as vote via a thumbs-up and thumbs-down button. It also shows the current vote count. While not all libraries would be able to manage an entire website, there are also websites that provide polls that could be created and shared through Facebook and Twitter for specific events or asking general questions such as user-happiness with the level of service that their library provides.

Balwani, S. (2009, February 6). Presenting: 10 of the smartest big brands in social media. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2009/02/06/social-media-smartest-brands/.

Exercise 1: Social Media Branding By American Eagle Outfitters

American Eagle Outfitters is a clothing company that has delved into the world of social media tools wholeheartedly. The company's Twitter account has a following of 81,981 people and their Facebook page is Liked by 5,358,977 individuals. AE Twitter consisted mainly of announcements regarding their Labor Day sales but also had many responses to Twitter-posed questions, such as:

american_eagle @xxxxx Can you DM me your email address and order number, I'll have someone contact you.

Many of the other Twitter responses were more lighthearted and conversational in tone, such as complimenting the owner's newest pair of jeans or that they love the new look as shown via a TwitPic link. The Tweets targeted at American Eagle Outfitters also ranged from discussing newly bought clothing, suggesting ideas like an AE mobile phone application, or complaining of an interaction that they had with an employee or store. This sort of interaction builds a relationship between American Eagle and those who use their products, especially as consumers receive replies from AE on a constant basis.

A Twitter search for American Eagle Outfitters mainly resulted in users stating the address of the branch that they were currently visiting. Otherwise, like the company's Facebook page and Twitter, the Tweets revolved around sales and deals as well as new purchases. Unlike online discussion forums dedicated to American Eagle Outfitters, Twitter allows users to Tweet about a number of topics in a single venue.

Similarly, American Eagle's Facebook page lists announcements of sales which are commented on by their followers. While there is the ability to comment, followers cannot write on the company's Facebook wall in a manner that is highlighted to the extend of the company's posts. Instead, they can only comment on American Eagle posts which are minimized unless expanded by the user (See "View all __ comments"). Unlike Twitter, this Facebook page does not create a dialogue between company and consumers but it does do its job in providing an outlet for people to discuss, via commenting, American Eagle events and products.

Lastly, I visited the American Eagle Outfitter website and blog.The blog Made to Last focuses on music that is played in the branches as well as musicians that American Eagle "likes." What surprised me was the complete lack of comments on the blog posts which is the complete opposite to the number of Facebook comments. That there were no comments for the first four or five pages of blog posts shows that there are either not many followers or that the readers deign to comment, which is highly unlikely.