For this assignment, I had to evaluate the social media presence of the Digital Library I had evaluated earlier in the semester for my Digital Libraries class.
Assignment 3: Digital Library Social Media Evaluation
For this
assignment, I analyzed the use of the various social networks used by the
Special Collections and Archives at Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest
University.
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| Special Collections and Archives, blog. |
The ZSR Special blog is one of the many
blogs run by ZSR Library, and different departments have their own blog. ZSR
Special have their own categories, where blog posts about certain things are
grouped together by what they are. For example, all of the posts about the rare
book of the month can be found by clicking the link “Rare book of the Month”
under Special Collections and Archives on the right side.
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| Categories of blog entries |
Advantages: This is a very professional blog, and
it has a lot of great articles. It allows readers to rss to it, so they don’t
miss posts. It is run through Wordpress, which helps to add to the appearance
of professionalism. Most posts have an image at the top, and the first
paragraph of the entry appears below the title of the post, which would help a
reader decide if they wanted to read an article.
Disadvantages: The main disadvantages to this blog is
the lack of outside promotion. Aside from the blog posts images being in
Flickr, there is very little cross-posting. Cross-posting is where the same
thing is posted to more than one social network at the same time. Another
disadvantage could be the fact that the blog is written by and aimed at
academics.
Advice to Special Collections and
Archives: keep up the
good work. The ZSR Special blog is beautiful, searchable, and well organized.
And to cross-post. Link to the most recent blog post on Facebook, Twitter, and
Tumblr. That would attract more people to the blog.
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| Screenshot of the Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives Facebook page. The photograph is no long their current cover photo. |
Facebook offers
a way for Special Collections and Archives to interact with students, faculty,
staff, and alumni through a medium most of them already use. It also allows the
commenting on and sharing of photographs, as well as statuses. Facebook has recently
added a feature where one can respond with an emotion to a post, link, or
photograph.
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| Screenshot of a post from the Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives Facebook page. |
Advantages: Facebook. Facebook has a decent
reputation, and millions of users. A lot of people already have a Facebook
page, so they wouldn’t have to create a new social media page to follow a
person or an institution. Lots of professional organizations and institutions
have official Facebook accounts.
Disadvantages: Facebook. Facebook has millions of
users, and probably billions of pages. There are regular software updates that
completely change how the page looks or is run, much to the annoyance of the
users. Much like other forms of social media, it can be hard to keep the trolls
at bay, as well.
Advice to Special Collections and
Archives: keep up the
good work. The ZSR Special Facebook page is easy to navigate, has a lot of
important information, and has lots of posts and pictures to attract page
views.
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| Screenshot of the Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives Twitter page. |
The ZSR Special Collections and Archives
Twitter page looks good, at first. There are lots of eye-catching tweets, and
links out to Facebook. But, each link I clicked on was a broken link. That is
not good for the image of Special Collections, ZSR Library, or Wake Forest
University. This Twitter page looks great, but the substance is lacking.
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| Screenshot of a post on the Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives Twitter page. |
Advantages: Twitter’s microblogging allows for
people to post eye-grabbing headlines and links to outside sources. Many
professional organizations and institutions use Twitter to attract readers to
their websites.
Disadvantages: the speed at which information is added
to Twitter makes keeping up potentially daunting. Also, the 140 character limit
can make posting content difficult.
Advice for Special Collections and
Archives: make sure that
the links to outside sources work. This Twitter feed is a great idea and it
looks great, but the links have broken, which is very frustrating. Otherwise,
keep up the good work.
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| Screenshot of the Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives Flickr page. |
The Flickr
account of Special Collections and Archives is something I am very familiar
with - I did a lot of uploading and captioning of blog photographs to it during
my practicum over the summer. Special Collections and Archives uses Flickr to
hold their photographs, and embeds the image into their blog posts. This means
that the photographs stored in the Flickr album “Blog posts” needed to have
information added to them - such as what they were and where they came from.
Advantages: Flickr is a great way to store and
organize photographs in a user-friendly format. Many professional organizations
and institutions use Flickr to store and display their photographs. The ease of
creating albums allows for easy organization, and shareable links allow for the
albums to be shared across social media quite quickly.
Disadvantages: Flickr is a bit flashy, and it is not
as professional as other content management systems, such as ContentDM.
Advice for Special Collections: keep up the good work with Flickr. But,
consider doing more with integrating Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter with Flickr
and the ZSR Special Collections and Archives blog.
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| Screenshot of the Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives Tumblr page. |
While Special
Collections and Archives does have a Tumblr, it isn’t updated all that often,
and it doesn’t seem to have that many followers. A quick perusal shows that
they seem to think that Tumblr and Twitter are much the same, as most often
they post a picture with a link to a website or a collection.
 | |
| Screenshot of a post on the Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives Tumblr page. |
Advantages: Tumblr has the feature of allowing a
blogger to post an image and a caption, and allows others to comment on that
image, keeping everything attached to the original image. Therefore, a discussion
between multiple people is possible. A Tumblr user can also tag another Tumblr
user, who then sees the previous Tumblr conversation, instead of having to go
and search for it. Tumblr also attracts younger users, who are often interested
in the materials found in a special collection.
Disadvantages: Tumblr has a reputation of being where
one finds the crazy fandom members and explicit materials, not as a social
network for a professional institution. Another disadvantage is that Tumblr’s
reputation is also where you find tweens and teens, and not necessarily where
you will find people interested in professional organizations and their blogs.
This may discourage organizations and institutions from creating Tumblrs.
Advice for Special Collections and Archives: flaunt the Tumblr. Tumblr is a great
place to tease your Flickr galleries, encourage communication, and have
academic discussions. Cross-post, as well, by posting the same things on
various social networking mediums. There are many people that would have been
interested in reading about the Gothic literature on display around Halloween
on Tumblr, but that wasn’t posted. Post events happening in Special
Collections, and encourage people to attend. Post a “did you know” trivia item,
and let people discuss. Have a weekly/monthly competition, with trivia about
items in the collections. Also, there are people on Tumblr who would happily
read the “Rare Book of the Month” blog posts, but who aren’t aware of it.
Z. Smith
Reynolds and Wake Forest University have an Instagram account, but the Special
Collections and Archives does not appear to have one. ZSR Library updates
fairly frequently, and occasionally shows off the Special Collections and
Archives.
Advantages: Instagram. Instagram is quite the name,
and people respect the ‘gram. Instagram is a great way to share artistic
photographs, and for people who don’t have other social networks to see them.
People can comment, like, and regram the photographs.
Disadvantages: Instagram. Instagram has a reputation
of being rather hard to use and understand, plus it further has the reputation
of where people post their pictures of Starbucks drinks with their names
misspelled.
Advice for Special Collections and
Archives: get an
Instagram, but only if you are willing to keep it up. Most of those Flickr
photographs would work rather well on Instagram, but Instagram is a lot of work
to keep up, and would be one more social network.
YouTube is much
like Instagram - Z. Smith Reynolds Library and Wake Forest have their own
YouTube channel. Wake Forest updates with significantly more frequency than the
library, with various playlists for incoming students and current students.
However, ZSR Library is starting a Live Stream in May 2017.
Advantages: YouTube seems to be the go-to website
for basically any video need, from a cat video to a Beyoncé video, from makeup
tutorials to lectures from around the world. There are a lot of academic and
professional organizations with YouTube channels, and many people go to YouTube
to watch lectures and learn anything from the Irish Language to the violin.
Disadvantage: YouTube’s primary disadvantage is
probably the loud adverts the play before videos, with no real rhyme or reason.
Other disadvantages include the reputation and proliferation of “YouTube
commenters.” Another disadvantage is the amount of non-relevant material that
is immediately suggested for just about any search.
Advice for Special Collections and
Archives: No need.
Unless Special Collections and Archives wants to do a weekly/monthly podcast or
livestream, there is no reason for them to have a their own YouTube channel.
Wake Forest’s
official Tumblr photoblog often features Z.
Smith Reynolds Library because of the distinctive shape. It is considered one
of the most recognizable buildings on campus, besides Wait Chapel.
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