‘Shark Tank‘ investor Robert Herjavec reveals the biggest mistakes small businesses make:
know your numbers. If you don’t know your accounting, problem
branding and marketing. Most people think branding is your logo. Branding is your whole package. Everything that your customer sees, feels, touches and interacts with.
success is in failure. if you cannot absorb failure, you will die
the difference between small business and academic institution, being that the library or the entire university, is that small business is reliant on itself; if it does not well, it perishes. The library and the university are reliant on external funds and can fester for a long time. But eventually it dies. In that sense, learning from the lessons for small business can help:
Branding is not mimicking someone else (another library[s)). It is not a superficial activity. It is not slapping pictures on social media. “Interact” is the key word. “Likes” in FB does not reflect complete interaction
know your numbers. Analytics is not about “likes” and “visits.” it deeper datamining, which can explain behavior and predict behavior
if success is failure, why safeguarding the social media in particular and the entire behavior of the library from “failure.” Isolating students or staff from acting with the excuse to safeguard from failure is practically isolating innovation.
disconnects into three categories—technology, policy, and unexploited opportunities—and discuss ways academic libraries can create next-generation landscapes to address these gaps.
Most library information systems and discovery tools are not easy to customize and remain substantially limited by an enduring library obsession with individual privacy and copyright.
Technology Disconnects
Some of the key technology disconnects between libraries and current online communities include:
Libraries lack tools to support the creation of new-model digital scholarship and to enable the use of Web services frameworks to support information reformatting (for example, RSS) and point-of-need Web-based assistance (multimedia tutorials or instant messaging assistance).
Dogmatic library protection of privacy inhibits library support for file-sharing, work-sharing, and online trust-based transactions that are increasingly common in online environments, thus limiting seamless integration of Web-based services.
Ubiquitous handheld access is more prominent thanks to digital lifestyle devices such as smart phones and iPods, yet libraries still focus on digital content for typical desktop PCs.
Policy Disconnects
Drawing a clear line between technology and policy can be difficult. For example, how many of the characteristics of current libraries (identified by the list below) are driven purely by technology or by policy? These traits include:
Mainly electronic text-based collections with multimedia content noticeably absent
Constructed for individual use but requires users to learn from experts how to access and use information and services
Library presence usually “outside” the main online place for student activity (MySpace, iTunes, Facebook, the campus portal, or learning management system)
Similarly, a policy solution might be required to address the following types of disconnects between libraries and online users:
Deliberately pushing library search tools into other environments such as learning management systemsor social network infrastructure and, conversely, integrating popular external search tools into library frameworks (such as Google Scholar and MS Academic Live Search or LibX.org)
Libraries linking and pointing to larger sets of open-access data that add context to their local collections
Restructuring access to reflect use instead of library organizational structure
Opportunity Disconnects
What is your library doing to:
Support the user’s affinity for self-paced, independent, trial-and-error methods of learning?
Create opportunities to make library information look and behave like information that exists in online entertainment venues?
Explore alternative options for delivering information literacy skills to users in online environments and alternate spaces?
Apply the typical user’s desire for instant gratification to the ways that libraries could be using technology for streamlined services?
Redefine administrative, security, and policy restrictions to permit online users an online library experience that rivals that of a library site visit?
Preserve born-digital information?
The promise of seamlessness that stems from ubiquitous computing access and instantly available networked information is, unfortunately, stifled significantly within the libraries of today.
Social media has the potential to facilitate much closer relationships between libraries and their patrons. Current usage of social media by the library community generally remains ad hoc and somewhat experimental, but the uptake of these tools is accelerating, and they will likely play an increasingly important role in library service provision and outreach in the future. Taylor & Francis has produced a white paper that analyzes current practices relating social media’s use in the library and how this differs by librarian job role. The sample was taken from academic librarians around the world, which also allows us to examine differences by geographic location. The goal: to establish how librarians are currently using social media in their roles, the most useful social media tools and best applications for these tools in a library setting.
explores a variety of social media tools in terms of how they can be used to organize information and communities. Together, you will survey and use a variety of social media tools, such as Delicious, Diigo, Facebook, Goodreads, Google Hangouts, LibraryThing, Pinterest, Storify, Twitter, and more! You will also explore how social media tools can be used to organize and disseminate information and how they can be used to foster and sustain communities of learning.
With the widespread use of library technology that incorporates social media components, intelligent objects, and knowledge-sharing tools comes the ability of libraries to provide greater opportunities for patron engagement in those discovery systems through user-generated content. These features may include the ability of users to contribute commentary such as reviews, simple point-and-click rating systems (e.g. one star to five stars), or to engage in extensive discussions or other social interactions. This kind of content could transform authoritative files, alter information architecture, and change the flow of information within the library discovery system.
Across generations, concerns for privacy may dissipate with time as specific technologies take hold or as people become aware of a technology’s benefits and value those over their value for privacy.
Library Privacy Guidelines for Students in K-12 Schools
p. 1 definition of social media for libraries
six primarytypes exist: “collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social networking sites,” and two types of virtual worlds: “virtual game worlds, which ask users to follow the rules of the game, and virtual social worlds, wherein users can behave without rules in almost any way they like” (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010: 59) it is not that I disagree with such definition, but i wish there was a “door” mentioning “flexibility” and “necessity to reassess” what social media is every year, 3 year, 5 years
p. 2 definition what is strategic planning
identify the needs of your target audiences,
identify the ways in which you can meet those needs, and
identify ways to respond confidently and proactively to changesin those needs.
Where the organization is
Where the organization should go
How the organization can get there (McNamara, 2011)
It must be:
Flexible
Based on data
Maintainable
Regularly cared for
covers and confirms my notes to the SCSU library use of its social media:
p. 83 ask uncomfortable questions
in planning, we must be prepared to ask, critically consider and answer questions that make us uncomfortable (not only that I was not let to ask questions, I was ousted from any body that was making decisions regarding social media. I was openly opposed and rebuked for asking why 3 reference librarians will keep the passwords to the account for the library SM)
p. 83 Communicate
If your team communicates honestly and thoroughly, then positive feelings and advocates for your social media endeavors will grow. In the span of 6 months, I had to ask three times where are the notes of the social media committee kept and eventually i will receive an answer, which in it nebulous and apologetic form was practically not an answer.
p. 83 Don’t rush to conclusions
Satisficing often works, but it can also lead to conclusions that are less then optimal. In the fall of 2013, I had to fight an overwhelming majority opposing my proposal that social media needs to include student representation, since SM is about dialog, not broadcasting (see page 86) and the current staff and faculty see SM as another form of broadcasting. In the span of six months, by the summer of 2014 library staff and faculty had fallen in the other extreme, letting one single student run all library SM. That student did/could not have understanding of the scope and goals of the library resulting in satisficing.
p. 84 aim for consensus, but don’t require it Consensus was the leitmotiv of the dean; it failed in general, and it failed in SM.
p. 84 get an external reviewer
p. 84 value and celebrate small success
a strategic plan will be realized through a series of small actions, not one or two pivotal plots.
p. 84 create accountability
p. 86 maintain a consistent tone and brand
visual and tone based consistency. This library DOES maintain consistency by posting Instagram pictures of people covering their faces with books, so part of their face compliments a face on cover of books. It is done by other libraries and it would have been cute and original if not overdone. If the SM activities of a library consist mostly of such activities then the “branding” part definitely is hurt. Yet, the faculty in this library vehemently adhere to “let’s see what other libraries are doing,” but does not understand that it needs further conceptualizing to figure out how to transform into “brand.”
p. 86 capitalize on the strengths of social media
“in many cases, business and libraries use SM exactly as they use their websites: to push content. This has been the main criticism from the start: the three reference librarians holding the passwords to the SM account were using Facebook as a announcement board and kept dormant the other accounts. The resolution of the library faculty who was called to arbitrate the argument with these three librarian: “I don’t understand very well Facebook.” The interim dean, who, subsequently had to resolve this dispute: “I don’t use Facebook.”
p. 87 Metrics
Analyze and tweak plan
measuring success is about maximizing time and efforts, not about laying blame for shortcomings or failures. this applies to daily tasks and responsibilities and shuffling time, but when the organization does not have a clear overarching goal and clear strategy how to achieve it, then issues must be raised up. which leads to:
p. 92 Plan for conversation
the inclusion of conversation. incorporate your patrons as primary content creators (not appointing just a single student worker to broadcast)
p. 92 use SM as an assessment or feedback tool
p. 93 plan to monitor your brand
if you decide to start watching these types of mentions, you’ll want to consider whether you’ll adopt a passive or an active role in responding to them.
Beyond social media, there is also a clear disconnect between how college admins reach out to their students and what students actually pay attention to. While the average college admin, like most adults, is used to reading and sending emails, students are quickly moving away from using email in their daily lives and getting them to check it regularly is painful.
A fantastic New York Times article in the fall examined college student use of technology and the results were fascinating.
While some faculty members are hesitant to contact students on whichever social media platform is in vogue, others have explored texting as an alternative to email.
The paper, which is being presented at next month’s Information and Telecommunications Education and Research Association conference, also recommends colleges should consider using texting and social media platforms to reach students. However, the findings still suggest email can be an effective method of communication.
How Millennials use and control social media, Published
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Social Media Usage Trends Among Higher Education Faculty ;
Yochai Benklerexplains: “The various formats of the networked public sphere provide anyone with an outlet to speak, to inquire, to investigate, without need to access the resources of a major media organization.”
Democratic bodies are typically elected in periods of three to five years, yet citizen opinions seem to fluctuate daily and sometimes these mood swings grow to enormous proportions. When thousands of people all start tweeting about the same subject on the same day, you know that something is up. With so much dynamic and salient political diversity in the electorate, how can policy-makers ever reach a consensus that could satisfy everyone?
At the same time, it would be a grave mistake to discount the voices of the internet as something that has no connection to real political situations.
What happened in the UK was not only a political disaster, but also a vivid example of what happens when you combine the uncontrollable power of the internet with a lingering visceral feeling that ordinary people have lost control of the politics that shape their lives.
Polarization as a driver of populism
People who have long entertained right-wing populist ideas, but were never confident enough to voice them openly, are now in a position to connect to like-minded others online and use the internet as a megaphone for their opinions.
The resulting echo chambers tend to amplify and reinforce our existing opinions, which is dysfunctional for a healthy democratic discourse. And while social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter generally have the power to expose us to politically diverse opinions, research suggests that the filter bubbles they sometimes create are, in fact, exacerbated by the platforms’ personalization algorithms, which are based on our social networks and our previously expressed ideas. This means that instead of creating an ideal type of a digitally mediated “public agora”, which would allow citizens to voice their concerns and share their hopes, the internet has actually increased conflict and ideological segregation between opposing views, granting a disproportionate amount of clout to the most extreme opinions.
The disintegration of the general will
In political philosophy, the very idea of democracy is based on the principal of the general will, which was proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century. Rousseau envisioned that a society needs to be governed by a democratic body that acts according to the imperative will of the people as a whole.
There can be no doubt that a new form of digitally mediated politics is a crucial component of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: the internet is already used for bottom-up agenda-setting, empowering citizens to speak up in a networked public sphere, and pushing the boundaries of the size, sophistication and scope of collective action. In particular, social media has changed the nature of political campaigning and will continue to play an important role in future elections and political campaigns around the world.
++++++++++++++
more on the impact of technology on democracy in this IMS blog:
Paul Scifleet
Charles Sturt University, School of Information Studies, Chalres Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia Maureen Henninger
Information & Knowledge Management Program, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Kathryn H. Albright
Charles Sturt University, School of Information Studies, Chalres Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia
The view we bring to this study is one of documentary practice as the set of techniques, including processes for the selection, synthesis and interpretation of the material form of documents and their content, meaning and context, that librarianship brings to the organization and management of knowledge (Briet, 2006; Pédauque, 2003). Current emphases in social media research on ‘big data’ and quantitative analysis are distracting from the significant role social media have to play as a record of social significance that should be brought into public custody for future use.
In its multiple manifestations, social media are “a new kind of cultural artefact” (Lyman and Kahle, 1998, para 15), as was the World Wide Web when Brewster Kahle set up the Internet Archive, reasoning that “in future it may provide the raw material for a carefully indexed, searchable library” (Kahle, 1997, p. 82). My note: what the German start promoting in the 60s as Alltagsgeschichte.
the possibility of selective acquisition and management of social media, as a document of specific events and topics, as an alternative to the Library of Congress’s whole-of-archive approach with Twitter.
LITA discussion thread on how social media should be run at an academic library:
Very much different from where I am at. But that’s not new, I have voiced the fallacies often in the last 5 years rather frequently.
From:lita-l-request@lists.ala.org [mailto:lita-l-request@lists.ala.org] On Behalf Of Alex Herzberg Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2015 11:39 AM To:lita-l@lists.ala.org Subject: RE: [lita-l] social media administration
Hi Allison,
The Loyola/Notre Dame Library’s social media is run by a committee of 4 full-time staff: two from research & instruction, one from circulation, and one from archives. I’m the committee chair but we all take weekly shifts for posting and monitoring the accounts. This model of sharing the workload has been really effective for us!
I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.
Alex
Alex Herzberg, MLS
Online Learning Librarian
Business Liaison
Loyola/Notre Dame Library
200 Winston Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21212
410-617-6831
From:lita-l-request@lists.ala.org [mailto:lita-l-request@lists.ala.org] On Behalf Of Lisa Rabey Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2015 6:16 AM To:lita-l@lists.ala.org Subject: Re: [lita-l] social media administration
At my last position, I was the systems and web librarian, which included social media. I did the following:
Managed all of the social media accounts (FB, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr)
Used Hootsuite to post date posts in Twitter.
Used FB to post date posts in FB
Created singular branding across all sites
Created social media best practices
Created social media policy in congruent with the college’s s AUP
Managed the backend of the blog
— Created a calendar for blog post ideas
— Enlisted other people to provide additional content
— edited blog posts from other posters
I’d say I spent 2-5 hours a week on the social media, most of which I managed when I was the reference desk.
The person who replaced me dumped all of the above. So there’s that.
-Lisa
—–Original Message—–
From: lita-l-request@lists.ala.org [mailto:lita-l-request@lists.ala.org] On Behalf Of Erik Sandall
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 11:49 AM
To: lita-l@lists.ala.org
Subject: Re: [lita-l] social media administration
Hi Allison,
As a librarian and webmaster, I split my time between library and IT.
I’m responsible for the administration and management of our social media accounts. I also post a little, and there are three others (one librarian, two non-libs) who also contribute content.
It’s worked out very well having a variety of staff across departments contributing to our social media efforts. I highly recommend it.
Yes it can and I, Plamen Miltenoff, am trying to convince my esteemed colleagues and administration at LRS to consider educause blog hosted at SCSU as the main vehicle for information. Main consideration is that integrated the blog (as social media) with other social media.
At this point, I have not received an indication that I am even understood what am I proposing. It is that desperate.
it has happened in the past that SCSU money is spent on activity, which I am educated and experienced to deliver. Lets hope that before someone signs for this workshop, h/she might turn fist to me for information.
If you have a desire to bring your departmental Web presence in the 21st century, please feel welcome to contact me.
library approach to information literacy. or WHAT IS information literacy?
is it the 90-ish notion of standing up in front of bored class and lecturing them how important is to use the online databases, which the university subscribe for
52% of teens use YouTube or other Social Media sites for a typical research assignment in school:
