Web 2.0 Experiences

[Zusman, Laura]

I agree with some of the other replies in that social media is what you put into it. It's worth remembering, though, that not everyone on Facebook or Twitter is an active participant - meaning you can't qualify the usefulness of your Facebook page with how many comments you get back. Maybe patrons are just reading your posts (which of course are pushed out to them in their Newsfeed), and aren't responding. It still means that they're reading them, or at least seeing them. The same with Twitter; of course, you can quantify how many followers you have, but even if you have only 6, that's 6 people who are getting your messages pushed out to them. Even if they never tweet to you, maybe one of them shows up at a library event because he got the tweet about it. That's a success!

Basically, these are free advertising services, and if you're able to make it more than that, all the better. But it's a fact that students use these sites - heavily - and it's worth it for libraries to do the same. It also doesn't take that much extra work, as long as you create a sustainable plan. If necessary, have a trusted workstudy student tasked with the charge, or just a staff member who is interested. But it's something that, at this point, there's little reason not to do.

Laura Zusman
Rivier College

From: Web technologies in libraries [mailto:WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Murphy, Michael P.
Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2011 5:19 PM
To: WEB4LIB at LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Web 2.0 Experiences


Greetings Web4,



I was curious as to your thoughts on libraries employing web 2.0 technologies, such as Facebook or Twitter? Does your library use these services, and if so, do your patrons respond? Personally, my library uses these services but part of me feels like they are a waste of time, as the patrons don't really respond to them and they just cause extra work for the librarians. What are your feelings?



Thanks in advance,



Michael Murphy

Southern Connecticut State University
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2011-12-03

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