Library 2.0 – The A-Z of Social Networking

My workplace is a P-9 school library in the western suburbs of Melbourne. We currently use no social networking technologies to connect with our users. We are a multicampus school with 3 school libraries across 4 campuses. The senior campus utilises the public library.

Blog – A blog is the easiest starting point for any library wanting to branch out into the 2.0 world. Blogs can serve individual purposes, such as a book review blog, events blog and a new books blog; however, a blog can also serve as the predominant library website for the beginning 2.0 library. Blogs are easy to update, easy to design and are all round easy to use, for both the blog writer and blog reader. It has been a plan of mine for a long time to create a blog as a website for my current workplace library.

Good reads – An online form of readers’ advisory, Good reads takes the ‘if you liked ______, you’ll love ______’ format off the bookmarks and into the online world. Many social networking tools do this automatically, such as Library Thing. It makes recommendations going by what other Library Thing users have on their shelves. This gives library users not only the opinions of the librarian, but the opinions of those all over the globe.

Help – To create a successful social networking presence, the library would need full cooperation and input from all staff. Currently, the attitude of most library staff employed by the college is very against change. For any real change in the social networking status of the libraries to occur, benefits of the use of social networking would have to be presented to and backed by higher ranked school employees. Each school library has a Library Technician as their highest ranked staff member.

Slideshare – A media hosting tool which host slideshow presentations, Slideshare can host presentations created by teachers for particular learning areas, by the library staff to promote library services, programs or events, or by administration staff to reinforce school rules, or for general announcements.

Youth –We as a school library are serving students aged from 5-15. This demographic, especially the teenagers use a lot of social networking tools, so it makes sense to use these platforms to communicate what the library has to offer them.