LIBR 559M Class Blog

I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I work for a library system in the lower mainland. I’ve been with this system for nine years now, and I have loved (almost) every day of it. Like many libraries, we’ve struggled to keep “relevant” and maintain some level of coolness. In order to do this, most libraries have upped their technological services, and many libraries have created a social media presence. A bunch of libraries (see NYPL and even VPL) have been doing a great job of this. They post cool stuff on Twitter, and even have Instagram accounts where they post things like book cover selfies that patrons send in. NYPL is even doing their own version of March Madness. Just yesterday I was forced to choose between Margaret Atwood and Lois Lowry!

Like I was saying: some libraries are doing a great job … my library, however, is not.

Our Twitter feed consists of a post-a-day or every two days at about 10:00 pm with the name of a book and a hashtag like #latenightreading or something. Whatever the hashtag is, I’m sure we’re the only people using it. Every once in a while, the library will tweet a link to its Instagram, where it posts an awful photo (plus a filter. Who uses filters these days anyway?) of six or so books on the floor of the back work room (or something) with the hashtag #newbooktuesday. Again, I’m sure we’re the only person using that hashtag.

Our YouTube account is equally as lame, and so is our Pinterest account.

Now, I think its great that libraries are using social media. I think it’s a great way to connect with our users outside of the walls of the library, and it’s a great way to deliver news of cool programs and neat things we’re doing, as well as to keep people thinking about and engaging with the library. But I really think that social media only works for libraries if they’re doing it well. In the case of the library I work at, I think that by having an awful social media presence, we’re doing the library more harm than good. Because it seems like we’re reaching out to say:

Hey! Remember us? The library? Yeah, we’re here and we’re on social media and we just wanted to remind you that we’re super lame.

Hey you! Have you ever sworn on Facebook? Do you thinkmaybe that’s why you didn’t get that job?

I don’t have Facebook anymore and I haven’t had it for a few months now (best decision I’ve ever made — not that this had much to compete with. I don’t make many good decisions). Not long before I deleted it, though, I changed my cover photo to this trendy shot my friend took of me reading Lean In, holding a bookmark that said “Read a Fucking Book.”

I thought it was clever and I was very proud of my bookmark. I got it at this co-op bookstore in downtown Seattle, where I bought more books than I had room in my suitcase and had to buy another duffel bag so I could cart them all home with me. But, anyway. Unbeknownst to me, this cover photo change was the topic of many a conversation around my parents’ and my grandparents’ dinner tables.

A month or so after the change, I got this email from my grandmother, who had been praying about it and felt like she really needed to tell me that I should change my offensive cover photo if I ever hoped to get a job. I thanked her for her concern, but kept the cover photo.

What do you think? Would you hire me for a librarian position in your library even if I had the cover photo in question?

I like to think of librarians as “cultured” and “open-minded” and “anti-censorship of any kind,” but do you think that something like a curse word on a Facebook profile would be enough to sway opinion in the eyes of an employer? I mean, feel free to say what you want since it’s not my cover photo anymore (and even if it were, I wouldn’t be offended — see, ‘open-minded’). Generally interested in your opinion here, so have at ‘er.

Thinking about Erika Pearson’s All the World Wide Web’s s Stage: The Performance of Identity of Online Social Networks, I can’t help but think about other people I know and how they’re pretending to be somebody they’re not online. And I’ll be the first to talk smack about those people, but it just occurred to me, however, that I’ve been doing something just as bad!

Recently I’ve gotten tired of dating people from Vancouver. Everyone I meet seems lame and boring (I’m not that exciting, either, so I should really shut up). But I still wanted the excitement of knowing that someone wants to date me, so I kept online dating but I changed my location to Brooklyn, New York.

I’ve been pretending to be a Brooklynite for about a month now and it’s absolutely wonderful. Everyone in Brooklyn is so much cooler than I imagined and better looking than I imagined they would be. The only problem I’m having now is trying to make up excuses as to why I can’t hang out!

The more I tell you about this, the more I realize this is actually really weird and Catfish-y. Have ya’ll seen that “documentary”?

Yo,

So this is completely not class related but I thought I would let you all know that I’ve been trying a little social media experiment in my free time. (What is free time even?)

I’ve started adding hashtags to my Instagram photos! Yes, I know I’m behind the times. I follow a few really good-looking people on Instagram and have often wondered how they managed to have so many followers and so many likes on their pictures. So today I googled “popular hashtags” to see what the kids are using these days, and then I copied and pasted a few onto my last selfie … and voila! 42 likes and five new followers! Anyway, I’m pretty proud of myself and feeling very popular right now.

UPDATE

Continuing to do this experiment, and the last photo of myself got 52 likes in total and eight more people followed me. Of those eight, only five are still following me since I didn’t follow them back.

I have added a new photo. Put a few hashtags on and then tried to cover them up with other useless comments on my photo so that they will still do their job but nobody will see. MY FRIEND SAW and it was a little embarrassing, but I explained to her that I’m doing this for science (a little bit for self gratification, but mostly for science).

Like a lot of us, I remember when Facebook required you to have a university email in order to sign up. I signed up as soon as I was given a school email address, and was surprised to learn that my American friends (I went to college in the States) used Myspace instead. I tried signing up for Myspace, but I just had such a hard time deciding who my top friends were!

I don’t use Facebook (or Myspace) anymore. I was never super keen on it, but I appreciated that it enabled me to contact almost all my friends at any given time. But over the years I’ve had the misfortune of seeing  how much of a person’s online persona is carefully cultivated, and it’s just not something I’m interested in being a part of.

Social Media accounts I have:

– Twitter (I post sometimes and I swear I’m funny, but people never “favourite” my tweets. So … it’s mostly just disheartening)
– Instagram (kinda the same as twitter except I swear my selfies are flattering, and nobody seems to think so)

Social Media stuff I couldn’t care less about:

-Pintrest (I actually can’t believe this site caught on. I thought it was just for girls looking for wedding ideas that look just like everyone else’s wedding)
– LinkedIn (I already have a job and I haven’t done enough cool stuff, career-wise, to want to post it online)
– Vine (Is this still a thing?)
– Snapchat (Nothing bores me more than seeing weird videos of you doing boring things)
– Other Facebook-like websites (Nope. No thanks)

One last thing I should mention is that in grade 10 or so I had a blog online on a website called Dead Journal, which is like Live Journal, but for angsty teens.