The Hennepin County Library (HCL) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a large library system of 41 libraries serving more than one million patrons (Peterson and McGlinn, 2008). HCL is very active in its use of social media, and is doing an excellent job. HCL has accounts on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. They offer an extensive list of RSS feeds, including feeds for library news, events and classes, booklists, subject guides, custom catalog searches, and individual library account information. The library website includes some interactive features, among them requesting users’ comments on the website and allowing readers’ comments on titles in the catalog.
The readers’ comments are hosted on the readers’ advisory site Bookspace. Bookspace is an online community of readers that the HCL launched in 2007 to replace their readers’ advisory pages (Peterson & McGlinn, 2008). In addition to writing comments, users are encouraged to create lists of their favorite books on whatever topic appeals to them and to create their own profiles. Reader profile pages include all of the readers’ comments and booklists, as well as a thumbnail photo and brief bio submitted by the user. This online community has been very successful, generating 12,000 reader comments in its first year of operation (Peterson & McGlinn, 2008). About 90 readers, including HCL librarians, have created profiles on the site.
Bookspace includes a readers’ advisory blog, and there are several other blogs embedded in the library’s website. These include the Teens Speak blog, a reference and research blog, and a blog called Freedom Ticket, which offers resources to people recently released from correctional facilities. In the spirit of personalizing the library experience, readers can change the display colors to any of seven choices on the teen page. The HCL website also demonstrates HCL’s commitment to training patrons in the use of social media. The library offers classes on social networking, and provides information on RSS feeds for new users.
HCL’s Facebook page provides news updates, basic information about the library, a few photographs, a page of tweets from HCL’s Twitter account, and a link for catalog searching. The MySpace page looks as though is not updated nearly as often as Facebook, but offers some useful links for teens. The YouTube account seems to be used exclusively by children’s librarians, with videos of fingerplays and rhymes for young children, a series on Newbery medal winners, and promotion of the summer reading program. The Flickr account stores photos of library branches, and a few photos of library programs.
HCL does a good job of linking communication from one social media site to another. Their home page includes icons for all five of the social media sites where they have accounts. HCL uses Facebook and Twitter to promote their new YouTube videos, for example. These notifications are effective—on February 25, HCL uploaded 12 fingerplay videos to YouTube; on March 7, they released notices on Facebook and Twitter linking to one of the videos. The linked video had been viewed 73 times by the afternoon of March 7—three to five times more often than 10 of the other 11 videos. Three days later, the linked video had been viewed 155 times; the other 11 videos uploaded on the same day had been viewed between 15 and 58 times.
HCL also does a good job of noticing and responding to patron comments. For example, a staff member from HCL made a prompt reply to one patron’s request on Facebook. In another example, on March 5, a patron complained about the lack of needed materials, and HCL responded with a link to their purchase suggestion page. Here’s the Twitter conversation:
@hclib Why don't you have any scholarly works on elder futhark? Letting me down for the first time, yo.
@patron tell us more about what are looking for http://t.co/dviB0ll - we listen!
@hclib Wow, somebody's burning the midnight twitter oil.
@hclib And also, I found what I needed through interlibrary loan. You're still the best library I've ever known!
@patron thank you for making our Saturday night!
Although HCL’s use of social media is generally outstanding, it is not perfect. HCL does sometimes miss an opportunity to continue the conversation with a patron posting on Facebook. The MySpace page is woefully out of date (the welcome note at the top of the page wishes everyone a ‘Happy 2010’ and there’s a link to ‘Best books of 2007’). At least one of the links on the RSS subscription page (‘News and search tips for using the Hennepin County Library catalog’) yields only an error message. The Flickr account for HCL is rather mundane, with seven photos of patrons at library events and 80-some photos of library buildings. (The Plymouth Library, however—one of the branch libraries—has a display of patron comments about their newly constructed building. The comments were written on a whiteboard in the library, and then photographed and uploaded to Flickr. This is a much livelier use of the photo-sharing site.)
HCL has built a strong and consistent brand online by providing quality materials and service and actively responding to patron comments, especially through their home website, Bookspace, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. They offer a consistent image throughout their social media accounts (except MySpace), using one of three variations of their logo on each account.
This newly-promoted social media consultant recommends that HCL
1. Expand their current use of social media sites. For example, the Flickr site could include more photos of library events—with links to these photos from after-event announcements on Facebook and Twitter. This provides a little thrill for patrons who attended the events and lets others know what they missed—all the more incentive to attend the next event. Librarians outside children’s services might consider using the YouTube account—posting book trailers produced by teens or adults, for example.
2. Increase linking between tools. HCL could include more photographs on their Facebook page and link to their Flickr account for those interested in more photos.
3. Expand the promotion of ongoing library resources as well as events and new creations. For instance, in conjunction with the Facebook/Twitter updates about new fingerplay videos on YouTube, HCL could include notes featuring the Early Literacy section of Bookspace.
4. Add new resources bit by bit rather than in a clump. Using the 12 new fingerplay videos as an example again, HCL could upload one video every other day over a three-week period instead of putting them all on YouTube in one day. This would encourage viewers to subscribe to the HCL YouTube account or visit regularly.
5. Consider whether they wish to continue with the MySpace page. I recommend that HCL either update the page or retire it. They should consult patrons and librarians in this decision. If they decide to update the page, they may wish to recruit young adult service librarians and their teen advisory group to help.
6. Set goals for expanding their user base…
a. …among users of social media, by becoming more active in online communities. HCL could support local non-profit organizations, authors, and performers by ‘liking’ their Facebook pages. They might generate starter lists of Twitterers on various topics or find useful lists created by others to share with their Twitter followers. Assisting in the flow of information this way helps online patrons and increases the library’s visibility.
b. …among patrons who do not yet use social media, by inviting them to join the online community. HCL could offer more classes on social networking, and promote their various tools inside their libraries (as they may already do).
HCL has the advantage of having a web services staff to guide their online presence (Peterson and McGlinn, 2008), unlike many libraries, but this does not mean that they have the time to do everything they would like to online. I look forward to future developments at HCL, knowing that it’s much easier to sit back and watch what a library has created and imagine tweaking things here and there than to actually do the work. It has been very interesting to review the work of an imaginative and energetic staff and their involved patrons—my thanks to Hennepin County Library for the privilege they didn’t even know they were bestowing upon me!
Peterson, G. and McGlinn, S. H. (2008). Building a community of readers: Bookspace. Computers in Libraries 28(4), 6-8, 10-11, 52.
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