Image by Pondskipper (from Flickr, under Creative Commons)
NB Pondskipper does not in any way endorse this blog.
Errr ... I am going to struggle to do what this Thing requires. I have to nominate a Web 2.0 tool (or tools) which I am going to use to promote my library.
I spoke to my College Librarian about my doing this programme, and suggested some of the tools that I'd looked at (Facebook, and Twitter particularly). The response? "That's all for social networking, and we don't want the library to be associated with that. It's not appropriate." I am not entirely in disagreement with this response, I must confess, and the numbers of users signed up for Facebook at other libraries seems at the moment to suggest that this is also the view of their users. Whether this is because they don't know about the pages - a need for marketing - or because they are not interested, it is difficult to judge. However, we are looking at re-designing our webpages, which I suppose is a start. Perhaps eventually they will have some images from Flickr on them, or something from Slideshare (if I can find anything apposite). Or a Google calendar with the dates that are important (though as said elsewhere, they are so few as to make it unlikely that the students will bother to go and look). Or possibly some RSS feeds to other sites of interest, or sources of information.
I suppose that by our very nature we have a limited and clearly defined user base - we are not trying to attract more users from outside in order to justify our existence. In that sense, marketing is not particularly relevant, though getting more of that base to make more use of the library would of course be good. With the staff and financial resources that we have we are also somewhat limited in the services that we can offer. There are perhaps more important improvements that could be made to the library at the moment than its marketing strategies, fairly basic though they are, and I doubt that any of the tools explored so far would greatly benefit us in addressing them. But I don't feel that this is really the forum for discussing these issues.
<> Please reconsider your lack of disagreement, please. Your College Librarian is a dinosaur, and their species is going extinct. Granted, s/he may very well last all the way till it's time to retire, but with this attitude, the academic library will eventually go the way of the card catalog. I am not a fan of Facebook, but you can't deny and avoid major societal changes affecting information-seeking behavior. If anything, marketing and awareness of academic libraries' resources and services can be one of the real benefits social networking (as opposed to sharing personal trivia and gossip). By the way, I am surprised to read in your blog that no student has ever asked you to help with putting together a bibliography. But if this is the case, it can be a sign of the library making itself less relevant at your university. Maybe showing a few students how "awesome" Zotero is would make them more enthusiastic about coming to the Library? :-)
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