About this blog
Simply put, social media is “any form of online publication or presence that allows end users to engage in multi-directional conversations in or around the content on the website,” (Glossary of Online Marketing Terms). Social media is participatory, and combines technology and human interaction. It includes applications like blogs, wikis, social networking sites, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, and innumerable mashups of other applications.
Social media has become widely used in libraries, and has the potential to transform the way(s) in which libraries can communicate with library users. In this blog I intend to explore the ways in which social media has been successfully employed in libraries (and possible improvements to these services), emerging social media trends/technologies, the theoretical background of social media, and the impact of social media upon our society.
In the true spirit of social media, I encourage you to leave comments that are both constructive and challenging. I hope to gain as much from your thoughts as I do in the writing and researching of my blog posts. In a past course, LIBR 500, one of our assignments was to review and evaluate the real life use of social media tools in libraries, and write about our observations in a blog. I narrowed my project to social media services for children and teens in public libraries. I have since taken the blog down, but I’m going to re-post some of the entries here because the content is appropriate (but not for credit, of course!). I’ll indicate which posts are repeats.
About the author
I’m from Camrose, Alberta and am currently an MLIS student at the School of Library, Archival & Information Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. I have a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Alberta, Augustana Campus, and spent a couple of very pleasant years after graduation working in the Augustana Library. I enjoy mystery novels, singing, travel, movies, and coffee. </personal ad>
This blog is a project for LIBR 559M: Social Media for Information Professionals.