Social Media And Public Libraries Exploring Information Activities Of Library Professionals And Users

Using Social Media to Build Library Communities: A LITA Guide is a community-building action manual for practitioners across the profession. By bringing together an array of perspectives to explore community building through social media, this book serves as the go-to resource for professionals who want to take social media beyond marketing and promotion to build an inclusive and engaged community of library users. Each chapter contains clear explanations of important topics for building communities through social media, and readers will come away with cohesive approaches for their own libraries. Using Social Media to Build Library Communities demonstrates that an energetic and committed community exists to help and guide fellow community builders.

The rise of social media technologies has created new ways to seek and share information for millions of users worldwide, but also has presented new challenges for libraries in meeting users where they are within social spaces. From social networking sites such as Facebook and Google+, and microblogging platforms such as Twitter and Tumblr to the image and video sites of YouTube, Flickr, Instagram, and to geotagging sites such as Foursquare, libraries have responded by establishing footholds within a variety of social media platforms and seeking new ways of engaging with online users in social spaces. Libraries are also responding to new social review sites such as Yelp and Tripadvisor, awareness sites including StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Goodreads, and Reddit, and social question-and-answer (Q&A) sites such as Yahoo! Answers—sites which engage social media users in functions similar to traditional library content curation, readers' advisory, information and referral, and reference services. Establishing a social media presence extends the library's physical manifestation into virtual space and increases the library's visibility, reach, and impact. However, beyond simply establishing a social presence for the library, a greater challenge is building effective and engaging social media sites that successfully adapt a library's visibility, voice, and presence to the unique contexts, audiences, and cultures within diverse social media sites. This lecture examines the research and theory on social media and libraries, providing an overview of what is known and what is not yet known about libraries and social media. Chapter 1 focuses on the social media environments within which libraries are establishing a presence, including how social media sites differ from each other, yet work together within a social ecosphere. Chapter 2 examines how libraries are engaging with users across a variety of social media platforms and the extent to which libraries are involved in using these different social media platforms, as well as the activities of libraries in presenting a social "self," sharing information, and interacting with users via social media. Chapter 3 explores metrics and measures for assessing the impact of the library's activity in social media sites. The book concludes with Chapter 4 on evolving directions for libraries and social media, including potential implications of new and emerging technologies for libraries in social spaces.

Digital libraries have been established worldwide to make information more readily available, and this innovation has changed the way information seekers interact with the data they are collecting. Faced with decentralized, heterogeneous sources, these users must be familiarized with high-level search activities in order to sift through large amounts of data. Information Seeking Behavior and Challenges in Digital Libraries addresses the problems of usability and search optimization in digital libraries. With topics addressing all aspects of information seeking activity, the research found in this book provides insight into library user experiences and human-computer interaction when searching online databases of all types. This book addresses the challenges faced by professionals in information management, librarians, developers, students of library science, and policy makers.

The last decade has seen significant global changes that have impacted the library, information, and learning services and sciences. There is now a mood to find pragmatic information solutions to pressing global challenges. Future Directions in Digital Information presents the latest ideas and approaches to digital information from across the globe, portraying a sense of transition from old to new. This title is a comprehensive, international take on key themes, advances, and trends in digital information, including the impact of developing technologies. The latest volume in the ‘Chandos Digital Information Review Series’, this book will help practitioners and thinkers looking to keep pace with, and excel among, the digital choices and pathways on offer, to develop new systems and models, and gain information on trends in the educational and industry contexts that make up the information sphere. A group of international contributors has been assembled to give their view on how information professionals and scientists are creating the future along five distinct themes: Strategy and Design; Who are the Users?; Where Formal meets Informal; Applications and Delivery; and finally, New Paradigms. The multinational perspectives contained in this volume acquaint readers with problems, approaches, and achievements in digital information from around the world, with equity of information access emerging as a key challenge. Presents a global perspective on how information science and services are changing and how they can best adapt Gives insight into how managers can make the best decisions about the future provision of their information services Engages key practical issues faced by information professionals such as how best to collect and deploy user data in libraries Presents digital literacy as a global theme, stressing the need to foster literacy in a broad range of contexts Interrogates how ready information professionals are for emergent technological and social change across the globe

Web 2.0 first created a scramble among librarians to participate in Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and other social media applications, and the turn is now towards management and consolidation. Managing Social Media in Libraries explores the developing information environment, the collaboration among library organizations, and the ways social media may convert the loose connections between library staff members. The book takes librarians beyond the mechanics of using social media, and establishes a framework to move library managers and leaders toward making social media effective. Managing Social Media in Libraries is structured around key topics in this area, including: refocusing after the first use of Web 2.0; library organisations as loosely coupled systems; social media within such systems; defining a purpose for the use of social media; connecting messages and tools; and integrating social media into standard websites. Provides practical ways of thinking about social media for library managers and leaders Provides examples of policies, workflows, and uses of social media tools for library managers and leaders Defines organizations as coordinated systems and discusses how social media tools can emphasize the benefits of coordination

Discover Digital Libraries: Theory and Practice is a book that integrates both research and practice concerning digital library development, use, preservation, and evaluation. The combination of current research and practical guidelines is a unique strength of this book. The authors bring in-depth expertise on different digital library issues and synthesize theoretical and practical perspectives relevant to researchers, practitioners, and students. The book presents a comprehensive overview of the different approaches and tools for digital library development, including discussions of the social and legal issues associated with digital libraries. Readers will find current research and the best practices of digital libraries, providing both US and international perspectives on the development of digital libraries and their components, including collection, digitization, metadata, interface design, sustainability, preservation, retrieval, and evaluation of digital libraries. Offers an overview of digital libraries and the conceptual and practical understanding of digital libraries Presents the lifecycle of digital library design, use, preservation and evaluation, including collection development, digitization of static and multimedia resources, metadata, digital library development and interface design, digital information searching, digital preservation, and digital library evaluation Synthesizes current research and the best practices of digital libraries, providing both US and international perspectives on the development of digital libraries Introduces new developments in the area of digital libraries, such as large-scale digital libraries, social media applications in digital libraries, multilingual digital libraries, digital curation, linked data, rapid capture, guidelines for the digitization of multimedia resources Highlights the impact, challenges, suggestions for overcoming these challenges, and trends of present and future development of digital libraries Offers a comprehensive bibliography for each chapter

The advent of new technologies has changed the scene in the information world. Today, information is available at the users' fingertips through social media. Social media can be a Trojan horse for libraries. New technologies shorten the distance between the library users and the rest of the world through tools and sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. It is a real-time connection, where users can subscribe to other users' activities, and share new ideas and technology. Libraries should find strategies of sustaining relevance without changing the role of the library. This book introduces libraries to new technology, showing how libraries, with strategic planning, can effectively use this new technology. Today, many people, including librarians, interact in the online world. People watch and comment on YouTube videos, comment on a friends' Facebook, and read and post blogs. Despite this, users might not necessarily know how to use social technologies effectively and meaningfully. This book shows how librarians can utilize social media effectively and more efficiently. The adaption of these tools will also help library professionals to communicate, participate, and add value to their experience by allowing them to access and share knowledge from available sources. [Subject: Library and Information Science, Social Media]