CLIC Social Media Event: Cardiff University Virtual Librarian Service

The next presentation was from Andrew Blackmore, introducing the Cardiff University 'Ask a Librarian' service.

The service is open Monday – Friday, 9.00-5.00, and is staffed on a semi voluntary basis.  It allows students to participate in live webchats with members of library staff to answer any queries they have.  It is also possible for links to urls and file attachments to be sent through the system, and students have the option to email a transcript of the conversation to themselves for future reference.  Likewise staff are also able to keep conversation transcripts, and reading through each others has been a useful learning tool.  Staff also have the possibility to chat to each other through the system, and transfer calls if they feel they are not the best qualified to deal with a particular query.

“Librarians are heroes”
It had a soft launch back in September 2010, and results have shown it to be very promising.  99.1% of students queried found the service either useful or helpful, and if service wasn’t there 11% said would give up on their query.  They have even found they've been getting queries from students actually sitting in the library!

So far the feedback has primarily asked for longer hours and the service to be available over the weekend.  Goals for the future include, formalising the staffing arrangements and possibly extending the service hours.  Although they currently can only guaranteed availability 9.00-5.00, Monday – Friday, they do try to do extra if there is someone available.

Andrew then did a live Ask a Librarian demo for us, and everyone was very impressed with how quick the response time was!

He finished up his presentation by encouraging anyone interested in adding the service to their own library, that it was not too expensive to buy and that the code is very easy to embed.

CLIC Social Media Event: How Cardiff University are managing their social media presence

Matt  Harvey discussed the number of ways Cardiff University Library Service were using social media with a very swish Prezi that you can see here.  

Cardiff University has a number of different online presences both internal (VLE, Portal) and external (web, blog, Twitter, Facebook).  Some of the Library's external sources include;

Web pages

Ask a librarian live

Library blog

Training videos on YouTube

Twitter

Facebook

The Library Technology Group was set up to look at new technologies and how they can be used by the library.  That lead to setting up the Social Media Group, which is made up not just of library staff, but is inter-departmental.  As part of that the Editorial Group sorts the day to day social media stuff, such as liaising with site managers and bloggers.


The core audience for their online activities are the students, but the general public, NHS users, alumni, distance and life long learners also benefit.


Although each library branch already had its own Twitter account, they decided there was also a need for a general one too.  When setting up that account there was a lot of discussion about what type of avatar to use, they decided to go with a professional picture, rather than using text or a logo.

The kinds of things @cardiffunilib tends to tweet about include;

Opening hours

Changes and disruptions to services

Promoting services

Emergency announcements, such as bad weather

Promoting information literacy and skills

Some external news, limited to what's relevant to the students

Specific information tends to be the domain of the various departmental social media tools, and staff notices are disseminated through the staff intranet and Portal.

@cardiffunilib has also created Twitter lists that it feels will be useful to their followers. Some of these lists include;
-Cardiff University departmental libraries

-Cardiff University schools and admin departments

-Bodies like UCAS, e-resources suppliers, funding bodies

-Cardiff Central Library, National Museum Wales, Chapter Arts Centre

They tend not to follow the accounts of students, as it might be considered invasive.  And although they follow the accounts of the various departmental libraries, they don't follow the individual librarians.


They also use Twitter as a form of two way communication with the students and to gain feedback, for example using the #yousaidwedid hashtag.

They have only recently started to use Facebook; they've set up their own Facebook page and are able to use it to organise events which students can RSVP to.

Finally, Matt ended by pointing out that all this activity on social media sites can be a good way to record things that the library is involved in.

CLIC Social Media Event: Using social media at Glamorgan Business School

"How I use social media for networking, current awareness and marketing: supporting staff and students in Glamorgan Business School"

The second of the 30 minute presentations was from Emma Harrison (@glambuslib) about how social media helps her connect with and meet the needs of students at Glamorgan Business School, and included a live Twitter feed (very brave, it is usually during presentations that technology decides to no longer cooperate)

She started with an introduction in to using Twitter for professional reasons.  She pointed out that Twitter helped her with her new job (she's been in the role 15 months) filling in gaps in her knowledge and boosting current awareness.  This was well illustrated as tweets started popping up in her timeline reporting the result of the #savelibraries High Court Appeal.

“What you get out of twitter is who you follow"

She described how she follows over 1,000 people on Twitter, including, librarians, news sites and staff and students at the University of Glamorgan.  As well as creating personal lists, such as a Welsh librarians list and one featuring members of the Business Librarians Association, she also created lists relevant to the subjects taught in Glamorgan Business School, such as marketing or management.

Emma recommends Twitter as a great way to share what you are doing as well as to keep up with what others are doing.

Whilst doing the CPD23 course (discussed later by Karen) she began to think of how she was coming across on Twitter. Her decision was to try to keep it professional and related to business, but also to show she is a human being.  This included looking at the language she used and the style, no text speak, staying professional, and not swearing.  The photo used for her Twitter avatar was taken by a professional photographer (all the librarians at Glamorgan had them done) and is used consistently in any promotional material produced by the University.

She decided to her username would be @glambuslib rather than something more personal so that if she moves on her replacement can keep the account.  This provides consistency for the students.

Emma also discussed how Twitter can be used to help create feelings of community, for example the #latenightlibrarian hashtag is used by librarians working on late night shifts when talking to each other.

She then went on to discuss the other social media tools she uses for work, including;
LinkedIn

Netvibes

Blog

She also pointed out that although she has a Facebook account she prefers to keep that solely for personal use.

She has a Twitter feed on her LinkedIn account as it makes it seem like she's busier on it than she actually is.

She can use LinkedIn to connect with staff not on Twitter about what she's been doing for the Business School. 

“Reaching far more staff than if sitting in the library waiting for them to ask questions”
The blog allows Emma to post information, rather than emailing it all to staff , instead she can just email them a link to the relevant post and if they are interested they can click the link to learn more but if not just delete it, which saves having to read through long emails that are not of interest.  The blog can also be used as a knowledge bank.  It's a great time saver, for example in dealing with repeat queries, it's possible to send a link to a previous blog post rather than have to write it out again.  Her Twitter feed is also linked to the blog.

Net vibes is used as a repository for subject guides for students with links to resources and information.  They are subject specific, for example, HR management.  They retain the consistency of design, used in other social media tools, professional picture etc. with links to Twitter feed and blog.  Emma uses lists to createTwitter feeds that are subject specific.

She believes that all these social media tools can help with breaking out of the echo chamber.

"Librarians suffer from people not really knowing what we do – using stuff like this (social media) can show what we do".

It can also be helpful to share and connect with the library community, you can compare and share best practice etc

Some of the questions that came up were concerns about having to follow loads of people but Emma pointed out that you don’t have to follow all the ‘list’ people.

The other main concern was how to find the time to fit in all the social media activity.  Emma pointed out that Twitter activity didn't take very long.  It is true that setting everything up can take a while, but once it is up and running it tends to take care of itself.