Thing 14

Thing 14 - Facebook

I already use Facebook. I use it far too much. But enough of my personal problems. Let's think about Facebook for libraries.

I went to an excellent training session some months ago at the English Faculty, where I saw presentations by Ange and Helen among others. It alerted me to a number of relevant things I might have failed to consider beforehand, and gave me the push I needed to start King's College Library's Facebook page, which may be found here.

Although layouts are fairly prescribed, and you can't mould it to the same extent that you can a blog, a library Facebook page is essentially what you make it. The information you broadcast determines the impression you give to the world at large. And you are broadcasting to the world. Most of the people to have 'liked' our Facebook page are current students, but we have also picked up a few King's College fanboys curious to see what the library looks like - inevitable, I suppose, given the emblematic status of King's College.

It's important to remember that Facebook is not our main channel of communication with students. If we need to get in touch with them, email is our first resort, and if we want to make the wider public aware of any developments within the library then we can post a news story on the College website. So what is the purpose of our Facebook page?

I see it as a light-hearted diversion from the library's main purpose of providing a service to students. Our page allows us to keep interested parties in touch with what's going on in the library. We can post useful things like information on library access or links to our Delicious bookmarks, but it's good not to let things get too austere. Maintaining visual interest is quite important. That means uploading new pictures every so often, whether of the library itself, some ducklings hanging out or a scan of an old news story about a seal visiting King's; or this cover of an 18th-century score from one of our collections, which I posted to coincide with the Royal Wedding:

As with a personal Facebook account, a decision probably has to be made about how often to update. It's not a good idea to post several things a day and swamp your fans' news feeds, or they will either block you or 'unlike' you (both of these are bad). On the other hand, you don't want to let the account stagnate due to infrequent posts. My feeling is that about one post a week is probably a happy medium.

When I started the page I was posting fairly regularly, but things have tailed off in recent months. When term starts again I'll make an effort to liven it up. If I felt myself capable, I'd like to turn it into something like this, but I'm not sure it would be appropriate.