A social networking primer for librarians

by Cliff Landis

Social networking is rapidly infiltrating the information environment, and it is essential that librarians understand how best to use these sites and tools with their work to better serve their users and reach people who have never before used the library. A Social Networking Primer for Librarians, part of Neal-Schuman's Tech Set, gives librarians a start-to-finish guide to the basics for using and maximizing popular social networking sites in all types of libraries. From planning to implementation to best practices to evaluation, author Cliff Landis provides highly practical, easy-to-follow guidelines for using MySpace, Facebook, and other prominent sites as a way to expand and improve crucial library functions like instruction, outreach, service delivery, and marketing. Landis also provides additional recommended print, online, and interactive resources to help further development. As with all the Tech Set guides, the discussion is accessible to the novice who wants to learn the technology and how to implement it, as well as the seasoned pro charged with translating "best practice" examples to the local setting and quantifying the results.

107 pages

First published March 31, 2010

Reviews

[CTEP]

1.) For the month of January I read two books the first, A Social Networking Primer for Librarians by Cliff Landis and the second This Child Shall Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa’s First Woman President by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

The social networking primer is a small handbook in a series called the Tech Set, guilds geared toward library staff and focused on using technology to connect patrons to library services. The book covers an overview of popular social media sites, how to plan and implement using social media to connect patrons, marketing, guidelines for programming and ways to measure success of social media programming. Its content is useful for any organization hoping to utilize social media to connect users to services.

The memoir of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf follows the life of Liberia’s current president and Africa’s first female president. Ellen was educated in Wisconsin and spent most of her career in various roles related to development and finance before becoming president of Liberia.

2.) I have been looking for ways to engage current and former students and wanted information on starting a blog or Facebook page for the computer training room classes. I would post class schedules, share success stories and post questions for feedback about services. The guild was useful and made me aware of liabilities I will need to look into before posting/starting a page. It gave me ideas on how to market and introduced me to branding concepts.

I had the great fortune to see President Sirleaf when she came to the University of Minnesota to speak. I had been meaning to read her memoir for some time. The book is inspiring and gave me perspective on struggles faced by people who come to America for education. In my service many of the patrons I serve come from abroad, the book gave me an idea of obstacles they may face.

3.) I recommend both of these books. The social media primer has a very practical application, supporting marketing of the work we do at our sites. The second book is a g

[H · Rating 2 out of 5]

Outdated, do not read. This book may have been relevant when it was published but in 2021 it is massively, almost nostalgically, outdated. MySpace is not really a player anymore in the social media world.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found less of this helpful than I was hoping, but it still is a great basic overview of social media for libraries and librarians, albeit focused on Facebook and MySpace. The first chapter was an overview of the history of social media, and had an unfortunate emphasis on online predators that I found completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. The planning and implementation chapters had the most to offer me, as I am in the current position of starting up my library's social media presence in the near future. I was disappointed by the Marketing section as it did not address how to market your new facebook page (i.e. where best to place it on your library's homepage; paper campaign; etc??), and by the Best Practices as they were all very common sense. Overall it was less groundbreaking than I had hoped and more focused on things I already know, however it did speed up the process by pointing out things I just hadn't thought about yet.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a little outdated by now (Facebook changes so rapidly), but this is a solid introduction. It doesn't go in-depth enough for someone already familiar with social media, but it provides some good strategies to start off with.