The Ubiquitous Librarian (Brian Mathews)

Who else is using Twitter? Championing Social Media Around Campus.

There has been a growing interest in Twitter by librarians—actually by people in general. Over the past two months I’ve noticed a surge in new people joining the service.

It was reported at ACRL 2009 that “only librarians are using Twitter” in the context that students were not. I must humbly disagree. This is a perfect example of the problem of over generalization (which I am guilty of all the time!) and the need to keep it local. I counted over two hundred GT student accounts. Perhaps that is considered small compared to a population of 18,000 but 200+ people using a still-emerging technology is huge. There are far more students than librarians using Twitter at my institution. I would assume that with the proliferation of iPhones and iPhone-wannabe’s that mobile-focused websites will continue to grow rapidly.

Libraries & Twitter:  that’s an old conversation. (I wrote a column back in June 2008 & this post back in April 2008.) A year later, what really interests me now is not how libraries are using Twitter, but rather how other campus entities have adopted it. Here is a quick (and by no means comprehensive) list of organizations at Georgia Tech using Twitter:

http://twitter.com/GTDining
http://twitter.com/Georgia_Tech
http://twitter.com/gtcomputing
http://twitter.com/the_nique
http://twitter.com/GTPDIT
http://twitter.com/GTPDalerts
http://twitter.com/GT_Graduate_SGA
http://twitter.com/georgepburdell
http://twitter.com/GTAthletics
http://twitter.com/GT_Architecture
http://twitter.com/NAveBulletin
http://twitter.com/GTRugby
http://twitter.com/TechWhistle
http://twitter.com/the_tower
http://twitter.com/venturelab
http://twitter.com/GTEarthDay

I like the idea that you can get all these little news blurbs from different people on campus. From the police and computing, to the dining hall, sports, student orgs, and academic departments. You get information immediately and directly from the source-- and it all comes to you all in one place.. It also gives you a channel to respond to or to comment upon the content as well.  So yes, it’s good to step back sometimes and not just look at what other libraries are doing, but what your community is as well. What does College Dorm 2.0 look like? What about Student Government 2.0 or Campus Dining 2.0? Stop thinking about just the library for a moment and consider how others on campus communicate with students as well. How can you work together with them?

One of the things I plan to do at UCSB is to see where these different campus units are in terms of emerging tech and then trying to lend a hand in helping them become better communicators. We’ll see how that goes. The point is, most of the time when I hear librarians talking about social technologies it tends to be with a student audience in mind; however I’ve had good conversations with our admissions department and campus marketing about 2.0 topics; they want to learn from us as well. I see this as a good opportunity for librarians to become campus leaders and helping campus staff incorporate this stuff into their work flow. I imagine pulling together a quick course and then taking it on the road to various departments and organizations around campus: a 2.0 road show for support staff and office professionals.  Just an idea… I don't want to just "teach" them how to use social tech(like via brownbags), but to actually try and make a coordinated effort and conversation across campus.

Marketing Today’s Academic Library – available today

ALA sent me ten complimentary copies of my book this weekend. I read it on Saturday and it was strange—it was like reading someone else’s book. The original manuscript was finished in September, so it’s been a while. I wish I had worked just a little faster so that I could have had a chance to sell a few copies at ACRL, but that’s how it goes.

I really have to thank ALA Editions, particularly Laura Pelehach, for taking a risk on me. I have not always shared the most popular views of our profession and people look at me strange whenever I talk about things like need states, psychodemographics, coolhunting, recall, and permission marketing; this book will probably confuse them even more. Thanks to J. Michael Jeffers for helping me down the home stretch. Tara Patterson and Dottie Hunt were also immensely helpful, and I addressed them in the acknowledgments. Thanks to Del Ross for a kind Foreword—I only stay at Crowne Plaze Hotels when I attend library conferences! Oh and Jane Jerrard did an excellent job of stitching it all together.

I am very grateful that ALA didn’t pressure me to write a 2.0 or social technology book. It would have been a disaster. While those elements are included in the text, the scope is much wider. I worked (struggled) on and off for 2 years on this project. It is very personal. Writing a book is very draining. You feel vulnerable—or at least I do. I spent so many mornings up at 4am gulping down Jone’s Soda, trying to get the words right. This book is really my personal handbook, my personal approach. I feel like I am in a defensive position now, waiting for all the bad reviews to come in. (I’m sure the annoyed librarian will hate it.) Oh and just a note, if you’re looking for a nice cookie-cutter, paint-by-numbers approach to marketing, this isn’t the book for you. In fact, in many ways it isn’t a marketing book at all, but a vision for public service. Here is the final paragraph that really encapsulates the spirit:

“The academic library can become a place for experiences. It is not just for research and reflection, but also for creation, collaboration, design, and display. The library functions as a workshop, a gallery, a museum, a canvas, a stage, a lecture hall, a platform, a case study, and a showcase of student work. The future of libraries isn’t simply about digitizing all of our collections, but rather, it is about providing, encouraging, and staging new types of learning encounters. Instead of using marketing to try to persuade students to use our services, the library becomes the natural setting for academic activities--an environment where scholarship happens.”

So there it is. I won’t hype the book anymore on this blog, but I will say that Chapter 6 (Building Relationships) is probably my favorite one overall; it is the most personal and probably the one that stretches out the furthest from the traditional librarian mindset. I am looking forward to going to UCSB and experimenting more fully with the techniques and approaches described in the book. Georgia Tech was a great testing ground for experimentation, but the real test will occur over the next few years out there when I get the opportunity to guide my own communications program. In closing, the book reads a lot like my blog, so if you like the stuff you see here, you’ll probably enjoy the book too. I actually miss not working on it anymore. I feel like I still had another 2 or 3 chapters in me—perhaps for the second edition?

Contrary to what it says on the ALA site, the book is actually 171 pages, not 136.

Is there a librarian in the vicinity? Geosocial Reference Services

I have been dabbling with two apps on my phone: Loopt and WhosHere. These programs allow you to create a profile and then see other people who are nearby and have the software installed on their phones too. I created a very librarian-centric profile and put it out there to see what would happen.

In two weeks I received four messages:

1. One was from someone unaffiliated with the school asking me to explain the Dewey System. He was joking around. DDS seems to be a favorite comedic theme for non-librarians. We then spoke (texted) about the “death” of print newspapers for about 15 minutes.
2. One was from a student asking me why the library closed on Saturday night.
3. One was from a student asking why he had to log-in all the time to get eJournals, even though he was on the campus wireless connection.
4. One was from a random person asking me “what’s up?”

All and all, not terribly successful, yet not a total bust. Two weeks isn’t really enough time to judge this little experiment. If anything, it shows that people are willing to contact a librarian who pops up on their screen. They might not be asking about tracking down citations but comments about service hours and proxy access are valuable. It’s a good start.

Geosocial networking or location-based networking services are on the rise. I read about them years ago in Europe and Japan. They seem to be very dating-driven right now in the US-- just like Friendster & Myspace started out-- people looking for companionship, but the potential for wider social interactions is possible. It is too early to tell if they are worthwhile for librarians. They have not caught on wildly yet with students, at least Georgia Tech students; the most that I’ve seen online during the day have been 10 students, but what happens when/if that number grows to 100 or 1,000? We’re heading into Spring Break next week, but I’m going to continue using these services through the rest of the semester. We’ll see if anyone else takes notices of the librarian among them.

New Job

I guess I can officially announce that I am moving. This summer I will take on the role of Assistant University Librarian for Outreach and Academic Services at the University of California, Santa Barbara .

The campus is on the beach, has five Nobel Prize winners, a top 50 ranking by US News, and according to Wikipedia has a reputation as a party school.

I am excited about the work ahead. This should be a good growth opportunity. Hopefully I can make some positive contributions to the library, the campus, and the UC System. The students I've spoken with seem to really care about the library. So that's a good place to start.

I'm going to miss ACC & SEC Football because honestly the Pac 10 is weak.

So that's that. I'll have a few more Georgia Tech blog posts coming over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.