[Web4lib] Facebook and libraries

[Robert Balliot]

Great point. Pages serve a fundamentally different purpose of access.
That way, institutional marketing can also have some level of control
over content.

R. Balliot
http://oceanstatelibrarian.com



On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 2:28 PM, Chris Bourg <mchris at stanford.edu> wrote:

> This is exactly why we waited until Facebook allowed libraries (and other
> organizations) to create Pages rather than profiles to establish our library
> Facebook page.
> Becoming a Fan of a Page is a very different thing than becoming Friends
> with someone on FB. We are at over 1000 fans at this point, with the
> majority in the 18-24 year old category, which leads me to believe that
> students are much more likely to become Page Fans than Friends w/ a library
> or librarian.
>
> Chris
>
>
> B.G. Sloan wrote:
>
>>  I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet in the "facebook and
>> libraries" thread, but the following report is kinda interesting.
>>  It starts out by describing a failed attempt to use Facebook at the
>> Gelman Library at George Washington University:
>>  "In 2007, librarians launched the 'Your Librarian is your Friend'
>> campaign, in which instruction librarians created Facebook profiles and used
>> them to maintain connections with students following the completion of
>> library instruction sessions.  These librarians used their profiles to share
>> research tips, display library applications, and emphasize their
>> availability to their student 'friends.'  Posters advertising this campaign
>> were prominently displayed in the library building, and bookmarks
>> highlighting individual librarian profiles were available at service desks.
>>  Despite these efforts, most librarians’ friends seemed to be librarians or
>> other peers, and there was scant evidence that those profile features
>> targeted at students were being used by students."
>> The bulk of the paper discusses Gelman librarians' attempts to figure out
>> why the initial experiment failed:
>>
>> "These disappointing results led Gelman librarians to take a step back and
>> ask a critical question: What do our students really want? That is, how do
>> our students actually use Facebook, and what part can the library play in
>> this social environment?"
>>  http://cua.wrlc.org/bitstream/1961/5136/1/Beyond_the_Buzz.doc
>>
>> Bernie Sloan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
> --
> Chris Bourg
> Head, Information Center
> Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources
> http://infocenter.stanford.edu
>
>
>
>
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