going where our patrons are

Going Where Our Patrons are Online

Meredith FarkasComputers in Libraries

The Situation

• We have great resources.

• We are often bad at marketing our resources.

• We are often not the first place they think of when doing research.

• There are certain places online where our students congregate.

Building Presence in Social Networking

Software

What is Social Networking Software?

• Applications that allow people to publicly articulate their social networks and make new connections.

• Centered around the profile

• Uses

• Making friends/keeping in touch with friends

• Making business contacts/networking

• Finding people to date

Facebook

• Largest number of registered users among college-focused sites

• 85% of American college students use it

• 34 million members worldwide

• Used to be only for members of institutions of higher education; now open to everyone

Making Friends

Anatomy of a ProfileWhat she is up to now

Her friends & our mutual

friends

Basic personal data

Way to follow what

she’s been up to (at least

on Facebook)

Anatomy of a ProfileMore about

her (interests, websites,

etc.)

Pulling in data from other

sitesEducational

and employment

history

Anatomy of a ProfileEven more about her

Other applications let you tell

people more about

yourself, your activities, and

interests

Can import content from an external

blog

Can post photos

Anatomy of a ProfilePeople can

post messages to

her

Messages from her friends

Groups she is a member of

Gifts she has received

Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups

Facebook Pages

Student use of Facebook

• No longer alone in a crowd

• Class of 20__ groups for newly accepted students

• Get to know the people in your classes before you even start classes

• Keep in touch with friends from other schools

• Join groups to find others with common interests

Facebook Applications

• In May, Facebook opened up an application development platform

• Applications can be created that work within Facebook

• At first, could not create apps that take people away from Facebook (like search)

Facebook overload

MySpace

• Currently, the most popular social networking site

• Over 200 million accounts

• Open to all

• By default, anyone can see your profile

• Profiles can be customized using HTML & CSS

Anatomy of a profileVital stats

Things you can do with her profile

Music that plays when

someone visits the profile

Blog

Current status

Free-form “about me” field

Anatomy of a profileCan post videos

Interests

Friends

More personal details

Anatomy of a profile

Comments from friends

Group features

Group features

Library uses of Facebook and MySpace

Why have a library profile?

• To build presence where our users are

• To provide a portal to our services

• To get feedback from our users

• To look cool?

• NO WAY!

Building Presence in Facebook

Facebook Apps for Libraries

Search Tools

Other Tools

Apps in Action

Apps in Action

The Ultimate Liaison Profile

• Catalog/database search tool

• Syndicate subject news and/or library news

• Show things you’ve bookmarked for them

• Use LibGuides to display subject guides

• Display new books in their subject area

• MeeboMe to chat with the liaison

• Use slideshare or video sharing to post instructional content

Getting Feedback in Facebook

Building Presence in MySpace

Practical considerations

• Which services (if any) do your populations use?

• What is the purpose of your profile/group?

• How can you pull useful content into your presence?

• How are you going to raise awareness about your presence (marketing)?

• Friending policies? Joining groups? Inappropriate messages?

Librarians on Facebook

Building Presence in Online Courseware

What is online courseware?

• A piece of software or suite of tools that enable course management and delivery

• Also known as Learning Management System (LMS) or Course Management System (CMS)

Options

• Provide a link to the regular library website inside of the classroom

• Create a portal to library services within the courseware

• Create custom library pages within each classroom

Issues

• Rapport building

• Access

• Time

• Technical

Thanks!

mgfarkas@gmail.com

Presentation wiki atmeredithfarkas.wetpaint.com