Comments on: Roles and responsibilities for 2.0 technologies

By: Michael Golrick

Michael Golrick — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:51:40 +0000

I live on the “public” side of the library world. This was sort of a question that came to me wearing my work hat, with a very specific twist — wanting to know about policies on Twitter.

Here is a link to the blog post I wrote where some of the info suggested that there needs to be a “broader view” which is what is suggested in the question you were asked. Think “institutional communication policies” and you actually move away from a technology focus to what I think is the real question. (Michael Porter used the quoted words.)

http://michaelgolrick.blogspot.com/2009/09/twitter-policies.html

Read the comments also, there is a very good one at the end.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:59:51 +0000

As others have mentioned, cutting edge technologies like these are often produced through the initiative of passionate and committed staff. Unfortunately, keeping these projects going after that staff leaves or is reassigned is another matter altogether. It’s not enough to build the tool or sell it to your patrons. You need to sell it to your staff as well and get somebody else investing their time or attention. I’m relatively certain every new 2.0 project I began at my last library has now faded from memory (and not for lack of usefulness).

By: Ann Owens

Ann Owens — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:03:53 +0000

I agree with Stephenb (Comment #4 above) that there should be a unified message and that administration should keep a finger on the pulse. We’ve just hired a Digital Services librarian who is gathering information from staff who have created branch blogs, facebook and twitter accounts during our recent “27Things” campaign. She hasn’t made any announcements yet, but I believe she is working on guidelines for branch staff regarding being “out there” on behalf of the library.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:21:42 +0000

I work at an incredibly small library in a very small community. We have three employees, a full time director, a full time childrens librarian, and me, the part time clerk. I use these tools personally and we all thought that I would be the best at managing our myspace and twitter etc. because I am pretty much the unofficial teen librarian and they are the reason we are using these tools. The director, however, is the one who takes care of the actual website, just so she can be positive that all the information is accurate, and because I don’t have any experience with websites yet. It realy does depend on who wants to do it. If we left it up to someone who didn’t really care, it would show in the dry, boring content of the profile or what have you, and really do the oposite of what was intended.

By: Patricia Devine

Patricia Devine — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:23:48 +0000

It seems to me that social media is a means to an end, not the end itself. So various people on a library’s staff may want to use different tools, such as twitter, to communicate about their work, rather than assigning the task to one person.

By: Tasha

Tasha — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:07:01 +0000

Our library has Twitter and blogs to maintain (we have FB as well but it auto-updates from our website.) As the library director and one of the geekiest on staff, I do a lot of it. That said, I also allow anyone on staff to blog, update the website and tweet. Few take advantage of Twitter or the blogs, but it is there if they wish. Our website is updated by many hands in all departments. I love the feel of the varying styles, showing our public that we are human and interesting.

This works really well for us and gets everyone participating, creating, and talking.

By: Angel

Angel — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:16:42 +0000

Like Joan P. above, I am the one who has started the 2.0 initiatives at my library from the library’s blog to the FB page. I am the Outreach Librarian (at least that is the title; I am in many ways more the troubleshooter and handyman rolled into one), so it fell on me. I don’t mind, since I have an interest in this, but like others have expressed, if I leave, the future could be uncertain. However, the accounts are set in a way where I can just pass the passwords to someone (likely the Instruction Librarian), and she could carry on. In other words, the library blog and FB page are not connected to me. It is something I have been pondering, what happens when the one who set things up leaves.

Best, and keep on blogging.

By: Ellen Filgo

Ellen Filgo — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:39:23 +0000

I’m our library’s e-learning librarian, and I’m also the one who has the biggest crossover of interest/time/job responsibilities. Therefore, I write our reference blog (with help of some other ref librarians) and keep the twitter updated (with the help of the marketing director and the director for public services – we all have the password) and monitor the Facebook page (with the two directors I just mentioned and one other interested librarian as admins…). I also monitor the Flickr account and the delicious links, etc. There are people interested here, I’ve just been able to get some of the web 2.0 projects off the ground.

By: Lyn Leslie

Lyn Leslie — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:40:44 +0000

Various people at our library take on the web 2.0 initiatives, particularly those in user sevices as we are the ones dealing with the customers, their learning and their queries. This question is a good one, however, as it discusses responsibility. ECU Library is fairly easy going and staff are encouraged to utilise technologies as they see fit.Howevewr, through our various committees we have touched on how much we need to template productions if they are going out under a library banner or to what to do to avoid spam and copyright infringments and other such like. There is not hard an fast rules though, just a need for awareness to avoid embarrassing the corporate body… It is all very much toe in the water stuff.
Lyn

By: Joan Petit

Joan Petit — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:22:17 +0000

I’m the one at my library who started our Facebook page–over a year before our university even had one. I’m doing it because I was the one interested. I’m an instruction and reference librarian, and I’m not sure how many of my public services colleagues are even on Facebook or Twitter (at least a few, but certainly not all). I don’t know what will happen to our Facebook page if I leave, but it wouldn’t have existed without me either.

Like a lot of projects, sometimes the best coordinator is the one who is most interested. And I think we need to avoid being prescriptive about who “should” be running these services.