Building Library Community Through Social Media

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Date

2015-03

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Library & Information Technology Association, American Library Association

Abstract

In this article academic librarians present and analyze a model for community building through social media. Findings demonstrate the importance of strategy and interactivity via social media for generating new connections with library users. Details of this research include successful guidelines for building community and developing engagement online with social media. By applying intentional social media practices, the researchers’ Twitter user community grew 100 percent in one year, with a corresponding 275 percent increase in user interactions. Using a community analysis approach, this research demonstrates that the principles of personality and interactivity can lead to community formation for targeted user groups. Discussion includes the strategies and research approaches that were employed to build, study, and understand user community, including user type analysis and action-object mapping. From this research a picture of the library as a member of an active academic community comes into focus.

Description

Keywords

social media, social networks, libraries, higher education, community

Citation

Young, Scott W.H., and Doralyn Rossmann. “Building Library Community Through Social Media.” ITAL 34, no. 1 (March 31, 2015). doi:10.6017/ital.v34i1.5625.
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