I’ve decided to give this blog a theme of music within the context of social media and librarianship. To kick it off, I figured I would use my first non-introductory post to take a look at the performance of three prominent North American academic music libraries on Twitter.

The Music and Performing Arts Library (MPAL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) @mpalillinois

Out of the three accounts I explored, this was the first one to join Twitter (April 2009) and, with 681 followers at the time this post was written, is the least popular. Tweets occur several times per day on average and retweets are rare. The content of the postings is quite wide ranging; there are links to a variety of general music library related news stories, UIUC information, news related to the MPAL library itself, study tips, and so forth.

The Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library at Harvard University @harvardmusiclib

The Leob Music Library’s account was created in October 2009 and has a decent following of 1,172 twitterers (is that a word?). The frequency of the tweets is slightly more sporadic than the MPAL account, as they appear to come in a flurry over a couple days each week. Another difference is this account’s reliance on retweeting to produce most of its content. There are original posts mixed in, but they are much fewer and far between. Like MPAL’s account, the Leob Music Library posts on a fairly broad range of topics. Most tweets are campus or library related, such as building closures, featured exhibits, collection news, and music events.

The Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale University @yalemusiclib

The first thing I noticed on the Gilmore Music Library’s page is the absence of a background photo. With 2,242 followers, this deficiency doesn’t seem to be affecting their popularity too much. The Twitter account was created in September 2009, and I spotted one celebrity follower: Steve Reich (one of my favorite composers). This account was a little bit different from the others in that it does not appear to post any retweets. Also, while they do tweet approximately twice per day, each post either links to specific items in the collection or directs users to a [music library blog type page] that the university runs.

Personal Reflection

So what did I learn from this? Good question. Really, it is tough to gauge the true success of these accounts without knowing how much traffic they are driving to the websites of their respective libraries. Similarly, with followers, it is hard to judge any of the accounts without knowing how much time/effort/resources each of the libraries puts into their promotion. The next step would be to contact the librarians in charge to inquire further.

Something I did notice in all three accounts was very little interaction from users in the form of of favorites and retweets. I wonder if some of this might be due to a complete lack of hashtags in any tweets. In my opinion, this is a missed opportunity for an effective and easy way to reach a wider audience. Tweeting about new Stravinsky acquisitions? #stravinsky. Tweeting about the latest post in the library’s blog? #musicblog. etc.

Probably the most interesting aspect of my observation was the delivery of the tweets. There were some different approaches here, with the Gilmore Library being quite focused in its approach while the other two posted on a greater range of topics. Which method is the most effective very engaging in driving traffic? If I were tasked with running a library’s Twitter account, this is probably the first question I would address. Personally, I like MPAL’s approach: covering a large scope of relevant topics while keeping the messages more direct and personal by not relying too heavily on retweets.