I recently read a white paper by Taylor & Francis (October 2014) titled, Use of social media by the library: current practices and future opportunities. The paper provides an overview of how libraries world-wide are using social media, finding that current use of social media tends to be “ad hoc and somewhat experimental.”

Some interesting findings: 

• More than 70% of libraries use social media (I was surprised it wasn’t more)
• Only 28% of librarians surveyed said their library had a social media policy!
• Facebook & Twitter are the most popular channels, but libraries are increasingly adopting visual channels (Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube, etc.)
• The main reasons libraries give for using social media is promotion
• 88% of those surveyed believe social media will become more important to libraries in the future

I was very surprised that so few libraries have official social media policies. Considering how frequently social media blunders are putting organizations in the news these days, I’d consider that to be a top priority for any organization that uses social media. At the same time, I think it’s essential to keep a casualness and a feeling that actual people are posting from the accounts of organizations, and this means granting the people who manage social media at libraries and other organizations a certain amount of freedom when posting content.

The report provides links to three libraries that have implemented social media policies:

• University of Maryland: University Libraries Social Media Guidelines
• CSUSM Library Social Media Guidelines
• University of Pennsylvania Social Media Guidelines

It’s interesting to see the differences in each of these policies. The University of Maryland Libraries policy is very short and basically states that all postings, comments, and messages are the opinion of the editor only: “Publication of a comment does not imply endorsement or agreement by the University of Maryland or the University Libraries.” I was very surprised to see this policy, as it indicates a lack of an overarching social media strategy and the lack of concern about representing the university of its library system as a unified organization.

The CSUSM Library policy is longer and gives much more clearly defined instructions about the library’s goals in using social media, who/what the library should follow, information about administration of social media accounts, and a very helpful list of best practices which I recommend you check out.

The University of Pennsylvania seems to be still in the process of developing a university-wide social media policy that is not specific to the library, and focuses on other aspects of social media including its use in hiring people to the university.