Facebook and libraries

There's currently a lot of discussion about libraries having Facebook pages.  23thingscity blog has a great list of example pages, which offer real food for thought.  I think Facebook will increasingly become an important tool for libraries to market themselves.  This is particularly the case for public and academic libraries, where funding is being slashed and 'creativity' is an essential euphemism for 'make do'.  The free marketing potential of social media is surely attractive, but I'm certain that Facebook pages for libraries are more than an austerity-happy free platform.  Social networks are places that libraries need to be, Facebook more than any other due to the number of readers who will be on this vast network.  Facebook is advantageous to libraries for two main reasons: it's free and it's where the readers are.


Digital savvy library users don't expect to have to go to all of their information sources, they expect some information to come to them through RSS, Twitter, Facebook - Web 2.0 in all it's popular guises.  Libraries that participate in social media give themselves an alternative platform to demonstrate their worth, give links to services and offer a source of advise.  Libraries that tweet and use Facebook can give up-to-the-minute information to students in a place where they're likely to be looking; I am yet to find a student that frequently looks at a library news website.  A library I'm fond of is the City Business Library, who use their Facebook page as a newsletter: they have attractive suggestions on finding information about specific, popular topics, they 'like' other City of London libraries, give a human vernacular to their service, link to their catalogue and market the workshops they run.

However, by their very nature social networks offer the interactive potential for libraries to be critiqued, as Keele University have found out*.  This is a useful asset to the library, an informal way of gaining customer feedback without following conventional methods like end of course surveys and paper forms on the issue desk.

As librarians we pride ourselves on knowing about information sources, retrieving information easily and teaching others how to use resources.  I am mindful of this as I reflect that many libraries have not yet engaged with social media and its potential for engaging with and helping readers.  Rather than just catch up with Facebook, libraries should be looking at ways to use emerging platforms such as Google+.

However, the instant nature of social media, the ability to flash up on someones Facebook wall or Twitter feed, should not be an excuse to pander to the social media model of information sources arriving without being sought.  Social media is an excellent way for libraries to redirect readers to library resources that inform readers of how to go to information, for that's what libraries are really all about.

There has been an interesting paradigm shift in how we view ourselves in relation to journalism in our lives.  In former times we went to a newspaper, or to the radio, or a news channel for information; we sought.  Increasingly information rolls along and displays itself at us.  Libraries must remember that their function is to assist research, and passing the skill of research on to readers is of fundamental importance.  While social media is a good thing to embrace and a useful, free marketing tool, its very nature is the opposite of the conventional library.  Informing readers of why that difference is so acute would be a very useful thing to underline.

* With regard to this point, Keele University fines can be found here.  I believe them to be far from excessive, and effective library use and time management should eliminate the accumulation of fines, aside from extenuating circumstances.