8/13/2019 Do You Facebook 2006

1/2

Brian S. Mathews

Do you Facebook?Networking with students online

Online social communities have exploded with popularity across the Web. Socialnetworks, such as Friendster, Myspace, Hi5,and Tribe, enable millions of messages, pho-tos, and comments to be shared daily. Each sitecaters to a unique niche, but among collegestudents, Facebook is king.

Perhaps the major lure of Facebook is itsexclusivity, since it requires an .edu e-mail ac-count to register. Members can restrict accessto their pro les from outsiders as well as par-ents, adding a level of security that the othersites do not provide. Facebook is extremely exible to use, and expands opportunities forsocialization. Members can search for otherstudents in their discipline, as well as theirdormitory, keep up with old friends and makenew ones, irt, gossip, complain about classes,and post an unlimited amount of photos.Students can also form study groups, nd outabout upcoming events and parties, and stayconnected with campus clubs and organiza-tions. With more than 2,000 institutions par-ticipating and nearly 9 million registered users,Facebook has become the ubiquitous onlinesocial network for higher education

Reaching outDuring my time on the reference desk, I

discovered many gaps in students familiarity with the library. Could the popularity of Face-book be used as a marketing tool? I startedby searching within the Georgia Institute ofTechnology directory on Facebook for thekeyword library and discovered Sleepingin the Library, a community group whosemembers share their favorite locations to takea nap. Next I searched globally and found

that a handful of other libraries had createdpro les. I considered a similar approach, butdid not want to duplicate the traditional youcome to me reference model. I wanted to beproactive, and to interact with the studentsin their natural environment. I also wantedto appear as myself, rather than a facelessorganization.

The planOne of my primary duties in my current posi-tion at Georgia Tech is to provide outreachto the School of Mechanical Engineering. Ihad previously used posters, yers, campuse-mails, workshops, and subject guides, butthese seemed to generate only minimal inter-est. Could Facebook be used to promote re-sources and services? With the undergraduateenrollment for mechanical engineering around1,700 students, I was surprised to discover thatmore than 1,300 of them were on Facebook.This presented an intriguing opportunity todirectly market the library to more than 75percent of my target audience. I was curiousto see if students would respond differentlyto a Facebook message than they had to myof cial campus e-mails.

Since Facebook does not offer a mass mail-ing feature, I had to send individual e-mails to

each student. After setting up my pro le anduploading a few photos, I crafted an informalmessage, emphasizing the nontraditional as-pects of the library, and attempted to appear

Brian Mathews is information services librarianat Georgia Institute of Technology, e-mail: brian.mathews@library.gatech.edu 2006 Brian Mathews

306C&RL News May 2006

mailto:mathews@library.gatech.edumailto:mathews@library.gatech.edu

8/13/2019 Do You Facebook 2006

2/2

friendly and approachable. One autumn after-noon, a few weeks after midterms, I startedthe e-mail process and was able to send out80 messages in under 20 minutes, but then Iran into a problem. As a measure to preventspam, Facebook set a rate limit of 80 messagesevery six hours. This was de nitely a setback,however I adapted by sending out an initialbatch every morning, followed by a secondbatch later in the afternoon. Over the course often days, I was able to deliver my message tomore than 1,500 graduate and undergraduatestudents in my discipline area.

The payoffResponses came back almost immediately.Some simply said cool or thanks, whileothers asked questions about building reno-

vations, online renewals, library classes, andgroup study space. Software however, wasthe predominate interest. Of the 48 messagesreceived back from the students, 20 of themasked about the availability of software pro-grams in the library, such as: which computershad AutoCAD, was there assistance for MAT-LAB, where could EndNote be downloaded,

which video editing applications did wesupport, and did we offer Linux? It becameobvious that the computers were the primarydraw for this segment of students.

While it was satisfying to receive thesemessages, the response rate seemed low.However, other measures of success canbe applied. For instance, I was asked to befriends by several students, which is a sign of

acceptance. I also received a handful of AOLinstant messages inquiring about journals andconference papers. Perhaps most surprisingly,however, were the students who approachedme around campus, at the student center, thegym, and even a football game, to say helloand that they had seen me on Facebook.Overall, the effort effectively helped me toexpand the goal of promoting the library andmy role as subject liaison.

The futureI intend to continue using Facebook to reachout to students and have started encouraging

my colleagues to do the same. Since mechani-cal engineering students do not traditionallyrely upon the library as much as other disci-plines, student interest could potentially begreater for others. I also want to avoid sendingout too many unsolicited e-mails, and intendto focus on posting messages to appropriateacademic groups. In addition, I created a Face-book community called The GT Library: MoreThan Just Books, and in less than a day, threepeople had joined. This will provide another

venue to push out information, however it issecondary to actually interacting with studentsdirectly, which I feel is the primary bene t ofFacebook. There is also the potential of target-ing incoming freshmen and graduate studentsand offering them individualized assistance.

Rather than waiting for students to ap-proach us, it is perhaps more bene cial tobe proactive and approach them. By usingonline social networks, librarians can increasecampus visibility and update the stereotypi-cal image, but, most importantly, we can letstudents know what the library is really allabout.

May 2006 307 C&RL News