Libraries are providing social media classes to the community but how do they actively engage with it themselves? Mylee Joseph, Project Leader of the Innovation Project at the State Library of NSW, discusses how and why the State Library of NSW has used social media and explores the aspects of discovery, engagement and collecting. Presented at Customs House Library, City of Sydney on 27 June 2013.

1. Social Media For...Libraries
Libraries are providing social media classes to the community but how do they actively engage
with it themselves? Mylee Joseph, Project Leader of the Innovation Project at the State Library
of NSW, joins us this month to discuss how and why the State Library of NSW has used social
media as a platform for engaging with their patrons and what effect it has had on user
engagement.
Thursday 27 June 2013
City of Sydney Library
#sydlibsm
Mylee Joseph
mjoseph@sl.nsw.gov.au
@myleejoseph
Introduction
Social media has become an integral part of daily life for many of us, it has changed the way we
consume other media like television, newspapers and radio, and given individuals and
organisations in the community unprecedented opportunities to publish their popular and
unpopular opinions to a wider audience. As part of the many various types of communities
libraries serve, social media plays an increasingly important part in our mission to deliver library
services and engage our communities. At the State Library of New South Wales, we have been
on this journey for a number of years and over the past twelve months we‘ve had a particular
focus on exploring, piloting and evaluating different social media tools to find those that work
well for delivering services to our community and to transition them to business as usual.
In this presentation we will take a look at some of the popular social media tools that are
shaping our lives and at their use in libraries. Not all of the examples of good practice that I will
draw on come from the State Library, because there are many great initiatives and inspiring
examples amongst libraries and museums to consider.
What is happening with social media?
To get a big picture view of social media and how big a part it plays in our world these days,
let‘s begin with a quick journey out into space and back in time to 21 July 1969 when Apollo 11
landed on the moon. There was extensive coverage in the media, television1
, radio and
newspapers but it was largely one way communication. No doubt people talked about how they
felt about these momentous events with their friends, families and colleagues but we have no
record of those conversations.
1
BBC television coverage of man‘s first landing on the moon consisted of 27 hours of coverage over a
ten day period. Source British television Apollo 11 coverage. (2013, May 25). In Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10:37, June 27, 2013, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=British_television_Apollo_11_coverage&oldid=556706790

2. When it came time for the 40th anniversary commemorations of moon landing in 2009, social
media had become a part of the way we communicate and share information:
● footage of the Apollo 11 Moon landing and Moon walk, was shared on YouTube2 3
allowing people to ―like‖ it, share it with their friends and add their memories and
comments
● the Apollo 11 moon mission was tweeted by Nature News as it happened -- 40 years on
https://twitter.com/ApolloPlus40 Allowing followers to read about technical milestones,
political challenges, and related events in the space race as well as retweeting to their
own followers. (NB: I had to search the Wayback Machine to find the blog post that
announced this project)4
Social media played an important part in promoting discovery (and rediscovery) of the historical
events of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Now let‘s fast forward again, to this year, 2013 and
Commander Hadfield and his crew on the International Space Station (ISS) and the way they
used social media:
● Sharing information, promoting discovery:
○ Chris Hadfield shared tweets, photos and his excitement and enthusiasm at
being in space5
, his Twitter account @Cmdr_Hadfield attracting more than 1
million Twitter followers6
who could interact with him and share his tweets by
retweeting them to their followers.
● Engagement was a particular focus of the social media activities of the ISS crew:
○ Commander Hadfield participated in two Reddit ―Ask me Anything‖ forum
sessions7
2
CBS News Coverage of Apollo 11 - Moon Walk 01 [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQDjy2csPP0
3
World's most famous video: First Moon Landing July 20, 1969 [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB4IsjV5Sa4
4
Nature News Blog: @ApolloPlus40 - Tweeting the Apollo 11 Mission. (2009, June 17). Retrieved June
27, 2013, from
http://web.archive.org/web/20111203222428/http://blogs.nature.com/news/2009/06/apolloplus40_tweetin
g_the_apol.html
5
Cmdr_Hadfield (2012, December 30). Festooned with antennae, our Soyuz, just a minute before
docking with the Space Station. Just beautiful! pic.twitter.com/bHE1J4Bz [Twitter post]. Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/statuses/285505458763096064
6
Usborne, S. (2013, June 11). Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield - who sang David Bowie's 'Space
Oddity' in space - to retire The Independent. Retrieved June 25, 2013, from
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/canadian-astronaut-chris-hadfield--who-sang-david-bowies-
space-oddity-in-space--to-retire-8653860.html
7
Hadfield, C. (2013, February 17). I Am Astronaut Chris Hadfield, currently orbiting planet Earth. : IAmA
[Web forum]. Retrieved June 27, 2013, from
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18pik4/i_am_astronaut_chris_hadfield_currently_orbiting/

3. ○ He interacted over Twitter with William Shatner, who knows what inspiration
Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise may have been for fellow Canadian
Hadfield8
○ Hadfield created a sensation performing David Bowie‘s ―Space Oddity‖ from the
ISS and sharing it over his own YouTube channel9
believed to be the first music
video made in space.
○ The crew, astronauts Kevin Ford, Tom Marshburn, and Chris Hadfield on board
the International Space Station answered questions in real-time from Google+
users, as well as pre-recorded questions gathered from Facebook, Twitter, and
other social networks in a Google Hangout.10
Let‘s not forget the other very engaging, social media users currently in space, the Mars Rovers,
Spirit and Opportunity, sharing what they discover via Twitter including pictures and video and
taking more than a few selfies11
(self-portraits, usually taken with an iPhone and shared with
Friends on social networks) as well.12
The Mars Rovers have even won the 2013 judges'
Webby Award and People's Voice for "Overall Social Presence."13
These examples highlight some of the key characteristics of social media, the interaction,
personal observations and comments in the public arena that are in real time, ephemeral (not
created with intention of keeping) and temporary.
This digital ephemera is not unlike some of the items that libraries have collected for many
years, including diaries, papers, letters, ephemera and newspapers. Some examples from the
State Library of New South Wales collection include: the diary of William Wentworth on the
8
WilliamShatner. (2013, January 03). @Cmdr_Hadfield Are you tweeting from space? MBB [Twitter
post]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/WilliamShatner/status/286910551899127808
9
Chris Hadfield [YouTube channel]. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtGG8ucQgEJPeUPhJZ4M4jA
10
Toor, A. (2013, February 22). NASA's Google+ Hangout from the ISS with Chris Hadfield is live now |
The Verge. Retrieved June 27, 2013, from http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/22/4016944/nasa-google-
hangout-from-iss-live-today
11
Parnell, B. (2012, November 2). Mars rover Curiosity snaps explicit selfies from all angles. The Register
[Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/02/curiosity_portrait_rocknest/
12
MarsCuriosity (2013, June 06). News from Mars: @NASA telecon + visuals today June 5 11:30am PT
(2:30pm ET/1830 UTC) http://ustream.tv/NASAJPL [Twitter post]. Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity/status/342316988238016512
13
Smith, S. (2013, May 1). Mars Rover Social Media, NASA/JPL Website Win Awards - NASA Jet
Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved June 27, 2013, from
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-152

4. expedition in 1813 to cross the Blue Mountains14
, the Bodyline cables and scripts15
and the
Sydney Gazette16
.
There are some examples of social media that needs to be captured as part of the historical
record, one key role of libraries. Consider the recent resignation of Benedict XVI, also the first
pontiff to use Twitter17
with more than 1.7 million followers, the archiving of his tweets by the
Vatican during the Conclave18
and the subsequent first tweet by the new pontiff, ―HABEMUS
PAPAM FRANCISCUM‖ — Pontifex (@Pontifex) March 13, 2013
Another leadership change, the #spill which removed Australia‘s first female prime minister
generated more than 500,000 spill related tweets in a day according to Twitter Australia.19
This
is double the tweets generated during the previous #spill in March 2013.20
This could be useful
research material particularly as public comments are another strand of the information
recorded about political events in Hansard and the news media coverage.
A disruptive technology
We can also see that social media has proved to be a ‗disruptive technology‘, one of those ―new
ways of doing things that disrupt or overturn the traditional business methods and practices‖21
,
in recent weeks there have been two significant changes:
● ―Working closely with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, the ASX
recently updated its guidance on disclosure, (to include social media) advising
companies to monitor online for sensitive information to ensure that the market trades
fully informed. Further, company secretaries must consider its impacts with respect to
risk.‖22
14
William Charles Wentworth - Journal of an expedition across the Blue Mountains, 11 May-6 June 1813
14
http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=447151
15
Cables and radio scripts concerning the 'bodyline' cricket series, 1932-1933
http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=132806
16
Sydney Gazette. (2013, June 5). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12:15, June 27,
2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sydney_Gazette&oldid=558370223
17
Pope tweets to a busy U.S. mom on finding prayer time. (2012, December 12). Retrieved June 27,
2012, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/12/12/pope-tweets-benedict-
twitter/1762819/?csp=breakingnews
18
Twitter archive for BXVI http://www.news.va/en/twitter_archive
19
TwitterAU (2013, June 26) 500k+ #spill-related Tweets yesterday, topping 5k per min as @KRuddMP
defeated @JuliaGillard. #YouDecide9 #AusPol pic.twitter.com/0qBAXOz7CP [Twitter post.] Retrieved
from https://twitter.com/TwitterAU/status/350119177522143232
20
TwitterAU (2013, March 22) There were roughly 250,000 tweets yesterday about the #Spill. See a
timeline of the most tweeted about moments. pic.twitter.com/OSpjW604Nf Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/TwitterAU/status/314847155787538432
21
BusinessDictionary.com http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/disruptive-technology.html
22
Lew, D. (2013, June 19). The importance of implementing a social media strategy. Retrieved June 24,
2013, from http://leadingcompany.smartcompany.com.au/strategy/social-media-love-it-or-loath-it-the-asx-
says-you-can-no-longer-ignore-it/201306194398

5. ● Google has changed its ranking advice for web pages on 27 May from ―In general,
webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-
quality sites that link to their pages‖ to ―webmasters can improve the rank of their
sites by creating high-quality sites that users will want to use and share.‖ 23
What does this have to do with libraries?
Social media is impacting libraries and has potential to be explored by libraries in all of these
ways, discovery (sharing information), engagement with the public and our communities,
collecting this important information for the future and improving the ranking of our web sites
and presences by creating content that users can easily share and that they want to share. So
let‘s take a look at some examples of this in practice:
DISCOVERY
Libraries can promote discovery of collections and information through putting content into
popular forums, interacting and gathering social meta data24
.
State Library of New South Wales
● Flickr Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/
● Twitter https://twitter.com/statelibrarynsw
● Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/statelibrarynsw
● Vimeo http://vimeo.com/statelibrarynsw
● Pinterest http://pinterest.com/statelibrarynsw
● Historypin http://www.historypin.com/channels/view/id/11686538/
● Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/State_Library_of_New_South_Wales
We like to think of these social media spaces and channels as acting as doorways to the Library
website which is our virtual reading room, but it is equally valid that our community may prefer to
use the Library and our assets exclusively in their preferred social media spaces.
Some other great examples from GLAM institutions around the world:
Facebook page:
o National Library of Australia
https://www.facebook.com/National.Library.of.Australia
Pinterest:
o New York Public Library http://pinterest.com/nypl/
23
Schwartz, B. (2013, June 19). Google Changes Ranking Advice, Says Build Quality Sites Not Links
[Web log post]. Retrieved from http://searchengineland.com/google-changes-ranking-advice-says-build-
quality-sites-not-links-163931
24
Smith-Yoshimura, K., Holley, R., & OCLC Research. (2012). Social metadata for libraries, archives,
and museums: Part 3. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Research.

6. o Tate Gallery http://pinterest.com/tategallery/
Historypin:
o English Heritage Archive http://www.historypin.com/channels/view/id/6482502/
o Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Wongarewa
http://www.historypin.com/channels/view/id/7411001/
Wikipedia:
o British Library project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/British_Library
Tumblr:
o Maryland Historical Society http://mdhsphotographs.tumblr.com/
o Smithsonian http://smithsonianlibraries.tumblr.com/
Instagram:
o Queens Library (New York City) http://instagram.com/queenslibrary#
o Western Australian Museum http://instagram.com/wamuseum#
Soundcloud:
o Bodleian Libraries https://soundcloud.com/bodleianlibraries
Youtube:
o Australian National Maritime Museum
http://www.youtube.com/user/MaritimeMuseum
o Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.youtube.com/user/metmuseum
ENGAGEMENT
The goal of online engagement is connecting your library‘s assets (collections, programs, staff
passion and expertise) with your audiences.25
It is challenging to determine what to measure in
social media to demonstrate engagement, most commonly an action like sharing or repinning or
retweeting is ranked more highly than simply ‗liking‘, ‗plusing‘ or ‗favouriting‘ an item. Some
government agencies have guidelines for social media metrics but the great variety of tools and
the different emphasis that may apply to GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums)
may require some tailoring of the measuring tools to indicate the engagement of audiences with
library assets.
● The State Library participates in Inside History Magazine Facebook chats
● Twitter is a very effective tool for libraries and other collecting institutions to promote
collection items (eg. #collectionfishing and #tbreaktweets). There are also some fun
developments with the @TroveNewsBot developed by Tim Sherratt which will respond
to a tweet automatically with a random newspaper article from the Trove digitised
newspaper archive26
.
25
Visser, J., & Richardson, J. (2012). Digital Engagement Framework : Designing a digital strategy for your
organisation. Retrieved from http://www.digitalengagementframework.com
26
Sherratt, T. (2013, June 24). Conversations with collections | discontents [Web log post]. Retrieved
from http://discontents.com.au/conversations-with-collections/

7. ● Reading is a very social experience with many authors making use of social media to
interact with their readers (eg. Garth Nix, Kate Forsyth, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman
and many more)
● Public domain images released for use via the Wikimedia Commons are used in
Wikipedia articles, including in the non-English versions of Wikipedia as well as many
other applications on websites, in presentations and publications.
● repinning in Pinterest is the simplest form of engagement (eg. Made with the BL which
showcases the ways creators have used the librarys services and collections to develop
new products and Instagetty which celebrates the pictures visitors to the Getty museum
and villa share on Instagram)
● Instagram (eg. MyHuntLibrary invited students to share pictures of their new college
library via Instagram and they were aggregated into a single set)
COLLECTING
So much of the content on social media is very transient and cannot easily be retrieved even a
few weeks later, for example Twitter posts are difficult to search for after 6-9 days due to the
limitations of the Twitter API27
.
There are a number of archiving initiatives in place:
● Library of Congress is archiving Twitter28
● The Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine archive some online material29
● In Australia some official web pages are archived in PANDORA30
● The National and State Libraries Australasia have developed a digital collecting
framework http://www.nsla.org.au/projects/digital-collecting
● The State Library of NSW is part of a scientific trial with the CSIRO to test the potential
of Vizie as a social media collecting tool31
Social media is an exciting format for libraries to work with, it is an environment that changes
quickly and particular features that can affect a tools suitability for library purposes can include
the terms of service, copyright and ownership of content, privacy policies and the amount of
staff time required to generate content. Some tools require more regular ‗feeding‘ than others
and some tools require more moderation than others. The advantages of forums to engage
with communities online and the likelihood that many existing ‗onsite‘ and ‗online‘ library users
are also social media users are compelling arguments for libraries to be active in official
channels on social media.
27
Using the Twitter Search API | Twitter Developers. (2013, June 7). Retrieved June 27, 2013, from
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/using-search
28
Allen, E. (2013, January 4). Update on the Twitter Archive at the Library of Congress | Library of
Congress Blog [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2013/01/update-on-the-twitter-
archive-at-the-library-of-congress/
29
Internet Archive http://archive.org/index.php
30
PANDORA, Australia's Web Archive http://pandora.nla.gov.au/about.html
31
Vizie provides social media monitoring to identify customer needs | CSIRO. (2013, April 22). Retrieved
June 27, 2013, from http://www.csiro.au/en/Outcomes/ICT-and-Services/Social-media-monitoring.aspx

8. References:
Social media use in Australia
● Sensis Yellow Pages Social Media Report 2013. Retrieved from
http://about.sensis.com.au/IgnitionSuite/uploads/docs/Yellow%20Pages%20Social%20M
edia%20Report_F.PDF
● Cowling, D. (2013, May 1). Social Media Statistics Australia – April 2013 [Web log post].
Retrieved from http://www.socialmedianews.com.au/social-media-statistics-australia-
april-2013/
Strategy
● King, D. L. (2012). Face2Face: Using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media tools to
create great customer connections. Medford, N.J: CyberAge Books/Information Today,
Inc.
● Stack, J. (2013, April 24). Tate Digital Strategy 2013–15: Digital as a Dimension of
Everything | Tate. Retrieved from http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-
papers/tate-digital-strategy-2013-15-digital-dimension-everything
● Visser, J., & Richardson, J. (2012). Digital Engagement Framework : Designing a digital
strategy for your organisation. Retrieved from
http://www.digitalengagementframework.com
Facebook page moderation
Facebook (2013). How can I proactively moderate content posted on my Page?
Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/help/131671940241729
Social media search tools
Topsy http://topsy.com/
Socialmention.com http://www.socialmention.com