Content Creators: Be Creative!

Are you a librarian or a medical librarian? Do you use Twitter? Does your library has a twitter account or a Facebook page? As one of the content contributors to our Reference Department's twitter account, library's blog, Flickr, and Facebook page, I constantly felt it is challenging and time consuming to keep the contents in these accounts rolling effectively and feeding it with relevant information quickly. Ideally, I wish our contents were updated while I'm sleeping...

A recent conversation with a librarian friend about feeding twitter account with RSS feeds on some desired topics. "Well, don't depend on those automatically feeds only. This is why you are here and you are the content creator." What he said really got me thinking. Yes, librarians are well known for being content creators in many ways including Web sites, subject guides, pathfinders, instructional materials, and library tutorials. Now content creators has evolved to include twittering, blogging, facebooking, and more. Librarians becoming digital content creators are the result of digital technology and digital reference services. The difference is digital content creators have to come up with contents in a quick and effective way.

If you are the person behind the scene, how do you manage your library's social media accounts to keep them fresh and relevant?

Communications: Campus vs Library

My library just joined Twitter, a step forward to get into the loop of social media. This is not one person’s initiative or one person's passion at the library, it is a decision from the library's Reference and Outreach Service Department. The first idea was to publicize library's resources and services and the second idea was to explore possible channel to deliver library services. To make this communication channel effective and helpful, it would be interested to know and look around how UTHSC campus communicates with faculty and students. Thanks for Brian Mattews' post that sparked my idea to look around. I especially like this and would like to share with my blog readers:

"Stop thinking about just the library for a moment and consider how others on campus communicate with students as well. How can you work together with them?"

Let's compare:

http://www.twitter.com/uthsc --- Yes. The library just opened a Twitter account.
http://www.youtube.com/uthsc --- No.
http://www.utmem.edu/facebook --- No.
http://www.delicious.com/uthsc --- Yes. The library has a delicious a account.
http://www.utmem.edu/wikipedia --- No.

How can/should the library communicate with campus?

Twitters and Tweets

I have been on Twitter for almost 8 months now and
I found it very interesting and amazing that people post information in less than 140 characters. The screen shot is a list of my top 10 favorite tweets ending at 11 am, Dec, 8, 2008.

From my perspective, what's good about twitter?

• It feeds me with the information I need quickly and saves me time to look around
  
• It trains me moving toward a networked librarian
• It opens up a colorful virtual world and I see myself swimming with those smart and informed people
• It tells me what my peers are reading, thinking, and experiencing
  
• It inspires me in many ways both professionally and personally

When starting using Twitter, I felt a wast of time reading those updates. However, I also saw its potential and some benefits. It took me a while to decide whose updates I would like to follow. Yes. Doing homework is essential in order to know your niche and follow the right people to get the right information. Twitter is becoming attractive to me.