Going the Distance: Leveraging Social Media Tools to Engage Library Users
The Medical Library Association, Inc. (MLA), held its 113th Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN, May 14–26, 2011 at the Hilton Minneapolis. The meeting theme was Rethink.
Section Program: Next Steps: The Future | Date: Sunday, May 15, 2011 | View the Presentation
Authors: Emily Mazure, AHIP, Biomedical Research Liaison Librarian, Medical Center Library and Archives, Duke University, Durham, NC; Shannon D. Jones, AHIP, Associate Director, Research and Education; Jennifer McDaniel, AHIP, Education and Research Librarian; Andrew Bain, Library Specialist I; Thelma Mack, Research and Education Coordinator; Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University – Richmond
Objective: To develop a well-defined and easily maintained online presence via social media tools such as blogs, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.
Methods: Our library has promoted itself using a news blog, Flickr, and Facebook with little documented success. An effort was made to review and revamp our use of online social media tools. Several factors were investigated. We reviewed currently available social media tools, investigated how these tools are being used in other libraries, and investigated the potential uses for our library. As we investigated various tools, we explored the practicality of each tool for promoting library services and methods for making the content relevant and visible to users. Based on our research, evaluation, and findings, we developed a streamlined process for managing our library’s social media presence. To provide a holistic view of the library’s activities, library staff with knowledge of each department’s activities were involved in this project. In addition, plans were developed for evaluating and assessing the effectiveness of each tool. A scorecard, based on the project goals, was developed and used to track a variety of user interactions.
