Bumpin’ Tweets from an Aged Library: But who is reading them?
I live in Uptown New Westminster where the residents are mostly elderly, retired citizens. The population does not lend itself to particularly bold digital advancements, and there are many old-fashioned, cash-only type stores and services that cater to the customer group. Our town’s library is not beautiful or splashy. In fact, it’s a concrete low-rise with a sad stip of garden that is easy to miss. The interior is dated and the worn furniture speaks of budget cuts. And this is all understandable if you know its fairly tumultuous history.
The library was the first built in BC, back in 1865 when New West was the capital of BC. It’s documents were left by British settlers and military (shady, I know). Is it cool that it was christened by Queen Victoria, and that she donated texts to the library? Maybe not, considering the effect of colonization. The library website offers a link to an interesting telling of its
The library was the first built in BC, back in 1865 when New West was the capital of BC. It’s documents were left by British settlers and military (shady, I know). Is it cool that it was christened by Queen Victoria, and that she donated texts to the library? Maybe not, considering the effect of colonization. The library website offers a link to an interesting telling of its history.
I got a library card when I moved to New West, but more out an obligation to support community libraries than a desire to visit the unattractive building. When I searched their website for signs of social media life, it wasn’t with any sense of hope.
I got a library card when I moved to New West, but more out an obligation to support community libraries than a desire to visit the unattractive building. When I searched their website for signs of social media life, it wasn’t with any sense of hope.
I got a library card when I moved to New West, but more out an obligation to support community libraries than a desire to visit the unattractive building. When I searched their website for signs of social media life, it wasn’t with any sense of hope.
However, since searching their website for signs of social media life, I discovered that the New Westminster Public Library is social! They have both a Facebook page, Twitter, and Instagram! This seems pretty incredible to me considering how old the library is and how old the population is here. There is a high school a few blocks away, however, so maybe that is the target audience for the library’s social endeavour.
The library’s Facebook page has 2-3 posts per day, and has over 700 likes! Scrolling through the posts, however, reveals that there are only one or two likes per post, and that it is usually the same people (I looked them up; they’re staff). While the page looks promising, it’s clear that it’s not reaching many people from the lack of comments or likes on posts. The library created the page in 2012, and even at the outset there were hardly any comments. 700 likes over the course of four years is not a very impressive number.
NWPL’s Twitter account has even less likes or shares since its creation in 2012: 276. It makes me wonder how many likes were done by library staff and how many by the public. Despite the lack of public response, the library tweets 2-3 times a day! The tweets, however, are copy and pasted from the Facebook page, so there is no new information to be found via the different media. Personally, I got completely distracted from homework while clicking on all the links on their twitter page. What is rug hooking? Read the novel before the 2016 movie comes out? Yes please! Unfortunately, tweeting that the library is hosting free computer sessions for seniors is unlikely to reach the intended audience. Individuals who are new to computers are probably new to twitter and Facebook as well. But a senior’s child or relative who does use social media may get the message to them.
The NWPL’s snapchat has 150 followers, and is a good effort at engaging patrons through social media. The pictures are mainly of individual books staged to reflect the title or theme of a book. For instance, there is a picture of the book “Chocolate Covered Murder” by Leslie Meier with a DQ sundae sitting on the horizontal book. It’s a cute idea, but I’m not sure I see how effective it is in engaging library patrons.
Which brings me to my final point. Why do libraries use social media? What is their goal specifically? This will be the theme of my next post.
This is a great post. I am a total history nerd so the history of the library in New West was cool to learn about even the colonial past that seems to permeate much of this place.
I wonder if this library ever thought to connect with the elderly population of users. I read a post by Dalen (https://blogs.ubc.ca/runningforthethrillofit/2016/03/13/got-to-catch-em-all)
He gives props to his Grandma for keeping up to date with Social Media. I wonder if there are other seniors who do the same?