Mississippi Library 2.0 Summit: Facebooking the MSU Libraries

Facebooking the MSU Libraries
Mississippi Library 2.0 Summit
Pattye Archer, Clay Hill, and Amanda Clay Powers

Early days of the project: Facebook services at MSU started with local department and individual uses. MSU student workers used Facebook quite frequently so the library staff started sending out messages to the student workers through Facebook (instead of through email) and received a better response. More students would read and respond if the message came through Facebook. Student supervisors started experimenting with Facebook as a communication tool by forming a (closed) group in Facebook, so they could communicate to each other easily. A Library 2.0 Committee considered the Facebook project (“incubating”) for wider adoption in the library.

In the summer of 2007 they showed that Facebook could be successful through the student’s experiences. They found that the individual profiles were successful.

MSU Libraries’ Facebook group was launched in the Fall of 2007 at the beginning of the school year. They put ads on the university buses about their Facebook account. They created a flyer highlighting existing library Facebook users’ photos/avatars. The flyer read: “Are you on Facebook? We are!” They also used table tents in the Union and in local restaurants like Starbucks. They put an ad in community coupon books w/ info on the Facebook group, online reference services, and coupons for free prints. Viral marketing is working through people’s status updates, group membership, word of mouth, etc. and more people are joining the group and using the application.

MSU also developed a Facebook application that searches their catalog. 11 people are “fans” of the application and 164 people are using it.

In doing information literacy instructions with students, if doing the tour from the library’s website the students don’t pay attention. But if you show them how to get to the very same resources through Facebook, they pay attention and “friend” the library.

They created event pages and invited the group – a digital video contest, and several in-person speakers series events (Collins Speaker Series, etc.). They also send out emergency information too – library closed days, server down-time, departmental emergencies, etc.

Amanda recommends sending shorter messages (status updates and messages) because many students receive updates via their phones and long messages are hard to deal with in that medium.

Faculty members are requesting instruction sessions on Facebook from the library staff because they want to learn how to use it effectively if they can. They are now planning on converting the Group to a Page (which they can do without losing friends), but it can take some weeks to happen. Pages allow more customization of the real estate on the page, applications, and you can get statistics (which you can’t get with a group).

Audience Questions: A question was asked about maintenance of the site (Facebook requires less updating/work than blogging, is a PR tool, and automatically updates itself without you having to go in constantly—but yes, somebody has to be in charge of it). Another question was asked about criticisms of libraries using Facebook, which is a social site (Do we want to keep ourselves apart, are we not a social environment anyway?).  Another question was asked about trying to authenticate who is using the Facebook page or other electronic services; shouldn't we make sure it's only our users? (No.  Libraries are largely public institutions, often with unique materials or services, and should serve whoever comes to them electronically).  Does the library accept all friend requests? (yes).