Remaking Twitter for libraries

When you're out with friends there often comes a time, usually late at night after a few drinks, when you start talking about putting the world to rights - or as we'd say in French "refaire le monde", remaking the world. When I'm out with my library friends, we sometimes "remake the library", from collections to training via social media. A few of us are Twitter users, and we've talked about what we'd like to do in the highly hypothetical case where we'd be in charge of a public library's Twitter account. Ideas from these discussions, as well as things I have "soaked up" from talks and conferences I've attended, have been going around my head and made me want to write this article.

So, here are a few things I'd like to do if I ever was given the freedom of managing a library's Twitter account:

• I would start by following library staff personal Twitter accounts. I would make sure staff know they are welcome and even encouraged to use Twitter at work, especially if they tweet about what they do and about things related to the library service. I would retweet them, perhaps using the hashtag #StaffTweet. View some examples in this Storify.
• As might have been gathered from the #StaffTweet examples, I'd use Twitter to promote collections and the service as a whole by talking about what library staff are actually up to. I'd love it if this could be done in a humourous way.

• I would have "A day at [...] Branch Library" every week or so, in a different location, so that the service's Twitter account is not focused only on the central library.
• I would promote library events, not just once, but several times and preferably in different ways until the actual day, and while it is happening. See examples of live coverage of events by Newcastle Libraries here.
• I would engage with people: not only by replying, reacting to their comments and retweeting them, but also by making them participate in discussions as well as games and competitions, for example with trivia questions. Newcastle University Library Reader Services (@nulibrs) often hold "guess where our library bag is in this picture" competitions.
• I would tweet about things that aren't directly related to the library service but my followers (and potential followers) might be interested in: mainly local and literary news. I would point to changes and achievements in the local area, talk about this popular author whose new book has just been published, highlight upcoming literary events, etc. 

• I would make sure the Twitter account is lively, by tweeting several times a day - not tweeting at all in any particular day is not acceptable. This would be made easier by having a team behind the Twitter account, rather than just one person.

[Text below added 31/01/13]

• I would interact with other local organisations - the obvious ones being the other cultural venues in the area, ("building partnerships"?) promoting each other's events. An easy thing to do would be talking about events that can be related to the library's services and collections: a film out in the cinema that is adapted from a book the library holds copies of, the local theatre putting on a play of which you can view the text or information about the author, background, film adaptations, etc. in the library.

Many thanks to my friends for our discussions and their opinions on this blog post!

Social media talk at NE CILIP AGM

Tuesday 13th March 2012 was a busy day for British libraries. In London, the libraries lobby was taking place, with a rally at Westminster and a call for constituents to come and talk to their MPs.

Up in Newcastle, we had the North-East Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) AGM and a committee meeting of the CILIP Career Development Group (CDG) North-Eastern division.

The NE CILIP AGM took place in the beautiful old lecture theatre of the Mining Institute. To the best of my recollection, Colin Raistrick, chair of NE CILIP, put it this way: "I know you didn't come to hear me addressing the group, but to hear Phil Bradley tell you about social media afterwards"! So I have to be honest: I didn't take any notes during the AGM... but I did fill a few pages during Phil Bradley's talk!

For those of you who have never heard of him, Phil Bradley works as an Internet consultant and is the current president of CILIP. And I have no idea how many ties he owns, but from where I was sitting, the one he was wearing that Tuesday looked a lot like it had both PCs AND books drawn on it... Hehe.

Phil Bradley started by explaining his role as CILIP president. Running for the presidency of CILIP is a 3-years commitment: the first year you are vice-president, the second year president and the last immediate past president. The president is a non-voting member of the CILIP Council. He chairs different committees, works with the CILIP team, represents CILIP at some conferences, talks to the media, etc. Phil Bradley stressed that he was keen to talk to and listen to members. The move of this year's national AGM to the North-East is also part of an effort to be more in contact with members and to have a less London-centered CILIP.

Phil Bradley is focusing his presidency on the following themes:

• Ensure that CILIP as an organisation and individual staff use social media resources to enhance and leverage its position;
• Articulate the importance of social media to individual members and groups;
• Discover and broadcast good library practice and innovation to the membership as a whole.

His goal for the end of the year is to come up with a set of CILIP social media guidelines which would help members use social media and gain access to it as part of their professional lives.

The third theme would also help him give arguments in favour of libraries and librarians in the media and in political debates.

But back to social media. What is it then? Phil Bradley admitted not being keen on definitions but still explained that social media was linked to the notion of user-generated content, which was the focus of what we had come to call "Web 2.0" - or more simply, the way the internet is developing. Nowadays, you do not need an in-depth knowledge of HTML or FTP to make something available on the internet: everything is more simple to create than pre-social media, which also results in easier access to information as more and more things are "cloud-based". As an aside, it is actually something governments are trying to regulate: for example, the American SOPA was designed to control what users can do.

Phil Bradley said that the tool (the PC) is not important anymore: it is the activity that matters. Our society is moving away from the artefact to a frictionless environment, where things are browser-based and the user is not tied to one particular device anymore.

Before social media, everything was on websites. Now, everything is crowd-based and easy to share (via Twitter, blogs, etc.) with many ways available to communicate.

Go to www.theconversationprism.com to view the full image

Institutions restrict access to social media because they are concerned that staff are going to be consumers rather than creators, and also because they are afraid of what their own staff might say about them online! It is important to have access to social media in the workplace because there is now information on it that is not available anywhere else. As an example, news tend to appear on Twitter first: it is almost instantaneous, whereas it would take time for news websites to create articles and then for search engines to index them.

Press departments no longer have control over the message, as people can easily blog, tweet, comment, etc. Where Web 1.0 was about control over the information, social media is about free access to it.

In practice, what does it mean? For a start, there are changes relating to internet search. A lot of search engines are now incorporating Web 2.0 in their results (blogs, wikis, tweets, presentations on websites such as slideshare, etc.) - hence the need to have access to it. The ranking of results on Google is also moving from "the most linked to website at the top" to "the most recommended [via social media] or talked about".

Social media is indeed about people recommending things to other people. Instead of searching for the information on our own, we like to ask people we know or see what they recommend, and we are now used to participation. Having a social media presence is therefore a way of getting involved into people's conversations.

There are several websites or apps helping us pull data back for our use, based on topics pre-set by the user and on recommendations. For example, Zite or Flipboard create your own personalised magazine downloaded straight onto your iPad. Similar things are also possible with websites such as XYDO, Scoop.it or even Netvibes. These tools, as well as other RSS aggregators, wikis, etc., demonstrate an evolution of the Internet away from websites that are too still, too fixed.

At this point, Phil Bradley also recommended Quora, where you can ask questions of people who are experts in their field, and social bookmarking websites Trailfire and Pearltree.

To conclude, social media results are becoming more and more important. Librarians need to go where the conversations are to find the information. Therefore, we need access to social media to allow us to do our job more quickly, cheaply and effectively.

"It's all just information!"

And just to put a bit of drama into this post: thus the presentation ended. Well, not quite; there were a few questions and comments!

Later on that same day, I attended the committee meeting of CDG North-East at Newcastle University Library. And I am proud to announce I am now an ordinary member of this committee!

2 for 1 catch-up

Two Things, from two different weeks and therefore from two different themes, all in one blog article! How is that for an offer?!

Thing 11 is about mentoring.
I could say I have had two informal mentors so far. The first person I have ever considered and affectionately called my "mentor" (though not in her presence!) was my manager when I first started working at Newcastle Libraries. She's the one I would ask about libraries in the UK, the profession, the organisations, etc., as well as being the one with whom I would spend time poring over the AACR2! Unfortunately, I now very rarely see her as we have moved on to working in different teams, with different work patterns. But whenever I do see her, she still kindly asks me how I am doing and whether I have applied to any jobs recently!
The professional librarians in my current team (i.e. my managers) are very nice and supportive and do not seem too bothered by me asking questions!
I have not asked anyone formally to be my mentor yet (though I might... I don't know, I don't dare - what if they say no, they don't have time, they already have more interesting mentees, they can't be bothered? Argh) My part as a mentee, I am afraid, consists of asking a lot of questions about my mentor's job - as in: "Oh, you're working on that? What's the plan? How much does it cost the library? You've decided to do it like this? Why? What are the options? How is it going to integrate with that? What happens next?" - and also about my own professional development - e.g. "Should I go to Umbrella?"...

Thing 12 is entitled "Putting the social into social media" - wait, wasn't this supposed to be catch-up week? Oh, never mind...
I was already using Twitter for professional purposes before starting CPD23. Through the programme, I joined LinkedIn and LISNPN. On LinkedIn, I have connected with people I knew in the profession, and found it great to be able to send them a message that's longer than 140 characters! However, I have not participated in the discussions in either network, and I only skim through the LinkedIn digest e-mails... I just cannot keep up with the social side of those two networks, considering I already use Facebook and Twitter regularly, and err, I have a job, and a life!
I have been thinking about the last question listed in the Thing 12 article: "In your opinion does social networking really help to foster a sense of community?" All I can say is that, personally, being on Twitter has helped me a lot to be aware of the UK library community, who was who, who was active in what field(s). Has it made me feel part of it? I do not feel completely integrated yet, but at least a little bit, yes, by connecting with persons met at Umbrella, or individuals influential in the CILIP groups I am a member of. But what about those who are part of the community and yet do not use social networking?

Connecting librarians

Things 6 and 7 are mainly about networking, online and offline.

I am already on Facebook and Twitter, and for Thing 6 I joined LISNPN and LinkedIn.

As I have said before, I use Facebook for personal purposes and Twitter for professional ones – and I intend to keep it that way.

I was attracted by the “new professional” emphasis in LISNPN. At the moment, I have only registered and introduced myself in the “Just joined LISNPN?” forum, but I have spotted some downloadable resources and a couple of comment threads I would like to have a closer look at. Apart from that, I guess I would really use it when I need some help or advice! But it’s great to know it’s there.

I joined LinkedIn because, in view of future career developments, I think it could be useful to have a public CV. I tried connecting with a few friends and colleagues, some people met at Umbrella 2011 and a couple of former lecturers. For Umbrella people, it was actually brilliant to have a non-length restricted and less public way than Twitter to communicate, in the form of LinkedIn messages! However, when I was adding them to my connections, I was surprised not to have the choice of a “met at conference” option to tick… The same goes for former lecturers: what am I supposed to add them under? Do those original categories appear publicly or are they just there for me to organise my contacts? I have joined two groups on LinkedIn: 23 Things for Professional Development and CILIP. Though I got a bit intimidated by the latter’s welcome e-mail asking me to share my thoughts on a few questions regarding the professional future of our profession… Originally, I thought the look of LinkedIn was a bit complex but I am now getting used to it (thanks must go to @schammond for her support and advice!)

Now moving straight on to Thing 7, which is about professional organisations.

Back when I was a student, in a faraway country called France, I used to think of professional organisations as a bit of a clique. Obviously, I have grown up (a bit) since then… In this year 2011, I decided to do something with my career – or at least try harder to have one. First action taken: in February, I joined CILIP as an associate member. Later, in May, I attended the North-East CILIP branch AGM. In July, I attended the CILIP Umbrella conference. I also wanted to register to Charter, but I discovered I had to first be a member of CILIP for at least a year… Anyway, I joined CILIP in the first place because I expected from my membership opportunities for continuing professional development and for networking. And I got them. At Umbrella particularly, I heard and learnt about stuff other libraries or librarians were doing that I didn’t know about, and met some great people. Learn and talk – could be an idea for a motto… Similarly, I would be happy to become involved in my local CILIP branch or a special interest group: this is something I will definitely be looking into, maybe for 2012?!

I’ve got only one worry about those networks: will I be able to keep up? If we look only at the online ones: I am already active on Facebook and Twitter; how am I supposed to find time to engage on LISNPN and LinkedIn as well? I am afraid I might not be participating as much in the last two…