Quality Content • Resource Management • Access • Integration • Consultation

Social Media in libraries

European survey findings
Jakob Harnesk - Nordic Sales Manager
EBSCO information Services
Social Media
Definition
• Social media is:
• A web-based media for social interaction
• Used to broadcast & transform media monologues into
social media dialogues
• Social Media scope:
• Communication: Blogs, micro-blogs, social networks, events, etc.
• Collaboration: Wikis, social bookmarking, social news, etc.
• Multimedia: Sharing of photos, videos, presentations, music, etc.
• Reviews and opinions: Forum, Q&A, product and business
reviews, etc.
• Entertainment: Media platform, virtual words, game sharing, etc.
• Brand/image monitoring: Analytics, etc.
Context in libraries

• Personal usage of Social Media exploded

• Professional usage of Social media
increased
• Social Media is viewed as a new tool
for effective marketing and promotion

How do Social Media applications

fit into the library world ?
About the Survey

• Objective:
• Sketch a picture of the social media usage in libraries in
Europe
• Targets:
• EBSCO's European customer base
• Libraries and information centers in all sectors (academic,
governmental, public, corporate, heath, etc.)
• Survey:
• Web based questionnaire
• Available in seven languages (EN, FR, DE, NL, IT, SP, PT)
• Invitation sent via e-mail, posted on Social Media, listserv
• Open during the 16th and the 30th of July 2010
• About EBSCO
• Leading service provider of e-journal, e-book and e-
journal package and print subscriptions, e-resource
management tools, and databases.
Survey Structure

Introduction
Introduction &&
demographic
demographic data
data

Personal
Personal opinion
opinion
about
about Social
Social Media
Media

Use
Use ofof Social
Social Media
Media
in
in your
your libraries
libraries ??

Feedbacks
Feedbacks about
about Social
Social Media
Media Reasons
Reasons for
for non-use
non-use
existing
existing Social
Social Media
Media projects
projects planned
planned of
of Social
Social Media
Media
(P1)
(P1) (P2)
(P2) (P3)
(P3)

Conclusion
Conclusion &&
Comments
Comments
Survey
Results
• Email sent to EBSCO’s contacts + ListServ + Blogs
• 1241 responses !

13
6
1
25

20
96 189 12
42 103 7
2

6
300 19 2
2

2
1

38 157
165
2
Survey Results
Respondents Profiles
Survey Results
Respondents Profiles
Survey Results
Respondents Profiles
Survey Results
Librarian’s impressions about Social Media
• Perception of Social Media:
• 15% Very positive
• 47% Positive
• 32% Somewhat positive
• 06% Somewhat negative
• 00% Negative
• 00% Very Negative
Survey Results
Library General Opinion / Key assumptions
• Social media…
• concerns all generations
• is helping to feed users with information
• is helping to maximise your library’s visibility
• is revolutionising the way we communicate
• is helping libraries to get closer to their users
• is helping to build a collaborative network with users
• is a great way to grab the attention of new users
Survey Results
Usage
• Users:

• Usage trends:
• 42% feel that usage will expand quickly
• 26% feel that usage will grow slowly
• 6% feel that usage will stay low
• Usage in libraries:
• 37% use Social Media  Population 1 (P1)
• 48% plan to use Social Media  Population 2 (P2)
• 15% are not interested in Social Media  Population 3 (P3)
Survey Results (P1)
Primary goals for creating Social Media
• Primary goals:
• Maximise library exposure (78%)
• Modernise the library image and e-reputation (59%)
• Promote specific content offers (53%)
• Build discussion groups and collaborative work (53%)
• Reach a new audience of potential users (40%)
• Publish library news and press releases (38%)

NB: same key goals set for library thinking about using Social
Media (P2)
Survey Results (P1)
Main Social Media targeted by Libraries
• Social NetWorks (ie. FaceBook, My Space) – 63%
• Blogging (ie. Blogger) – 55%
• Widget (ie. RSS) – 46%
• Micro-Blogging (ie. Twitter) – 46%
• Social & Library Bookmarking and Cataloguing (ie. del.icio.us,
lib.rario.us, Library Thing) – 38%
• Wiki / collaborative websites (Wikipedia, pbworks, Socialtext) -38%
• Photo Sharing (ie. Flickr, Picasa) – 29%
• Video Sharing (ie. Vimeo, YouTube) – 27%
• Document Sharing (ie. SlideShare) – 26%
• Instant Messaging (MSN, ICQ, Meebo, AIM) – 17%
• B2B NetWorks (ie. Viadeo, LinkedIn) – 14%
• NewsGroup / Forum (Php BB) – 7%
Survey Results (P1)
Time and postings
• Time dedicated to maintain and update Social Media
• 10% of my time (56%)
• 20% of my time (23%)

• Frequency of new content posting:

• less than 5 messages a week (56%)
• 5 to 10 messages a week (36%)
• More than 2 messages a day (8%)

NB: about the same expectations for libraries thinking about

using Social Media (P2)
Survey Results (P1&P2)
Users needs surveyed prior to launch
• Library using Social media (P1)
• 14% implemented Social Media with preliminary survey

• Library thinking about using Social media (P2)

• 41% will implement Social Media with preliminary survey
Survey Results (P1)
Main Difficulties faced
• Main difficulties faced when implementing Social Media
• Takes too much time to maintain (41%)
• Too many Social Media features/tools to learn (28%)
• Low interest of users (26%)
• Restrictive internal organisation policies (24%)
• Information security (20%)
• Confidentiality issues (18%)

NB: Libraries thinking about using Social Media (P2) feel that
the same difficulties are to be faced + issue with:
• IT infrastructure not efficient
(lack of computers, internet access)
Survey Results (P1)
Main Success factors to consider
• Main success factors when building a Social Media
• Good understanding of users needs (60%)
• Human resources and time to develop & maintain (59%)
• Creative ways to keep user interest high (46%)
• Users involvement & regular participation (41%)
• Quality content posted and lots of topics to react on
(39%)
• Well adapted Web 2.0 functionalities (34%)

NB: same main success factors identified by libraries thinking

about using Social Media (P2)
Survey Results (P1)
Library expectations towards providers
• Main expectations toward library providers (publishers,
aggregator, subscription agents)
• Create more applications that I could integrate in my social
media platform (55%)
• To be informed on new content, solutions and event (44%)
• Create Web 2.0 tools to speed-up communication between
my partners and my library (43%)

NB: same expectations from libraries thinking about using Social

Media (P2)
Survey Results (P3)
Reasons for not using Social Media
• Main reasons for not using Social Media
• Difficult to control (spam, negative publicity) – 38%
• Takes too much time to maintain – 37%
• Low interest of users – 31%
• Information security – 31%
• Restrictive internal organisation policies – 28%
• Confidentiality issues - 26%
Survey Results
Main differences in Europe
• Librarians impressions about Social Media

Very positive
Positive
Somewhat positive
Somewhat negative
Negative
Very Negative

NB: only countries with > 10 answers have been considered

Survey Results
Main differences in Europe
• Libraries using Social Media today

83%

Over 60%
Between 50% and 59%
Between 40% and 49%
Between 30% and 39%
Between 20% and 29%
Below 19%

18%

NB: only countries with > 10 answers have been considered

EBSCO initiatives
with Social Media applications
• RSS feeds for EBSCO news
• EBSCO Information Services
• EBSCO Publishing
• EBSCO on Twitter: • EBSCO on FaceBook:
• @EBSCOInfoSvcs • EBSCO Publishing
• @EBSCOPublishing • EBSCO Industries
• @DynaMed_POC • EBSCO Bugle site
• EBSCO Support site • EBSCO staff personal pages
• RSS feeds for “top stories” section
• FAQ or Help Sheet have a “rating” option
• tutorials/videos & Interactive audio-visual demos with quiz
questions to test your knowledge
• Many videos (on YouTube, Vimeo), mostly made by clients to
offer training on EBSCO products
• ie. A-to-Z or EBSCOhost
EBSCO initiatives
with Social Media applications
• EBSCONET:
• RSS feeds for E-Journal updates (general announcements and
specific to the customer’s collection)
• EBSCO A-to-Z:
• RSS feeds for journals TOC
• Custom Tabs to integrate some social features (such as Meebo
chat device) or social media websites
• EBSCOhost:
• RSS feeds for searches and journals
• Widget integration to embed RSS feeds and web application into
the EBSCOhost result list
• Bookmark icons feature on the search results page and the
article citation detail pages in order to integrate with Delicious,
Diigo, Dozens, etc.
• Embeddable EBSCOhost search boxes into other applications
such as custom search pages, facebook, etc.
• Mobile reader application (soon to be released on iPhone)
• Instant messaging, Meebo, Flickr
Go further
Other interesting researches & surveys
Social Media, Libraries, and Web 2.0: How American Libraries
are Using New Tools for Public Relations and to Attract
new Users - Second Survey November 2009
Curtis R Rogers

La bibliothèque 2.0, Genèse et évolutions d’un concept

Olivier Le Deuff (FR)

Ifla 2007:
• Web 3.0 and Libraries - Stephen Abram
• Library 2.0 and User-Generated Content - Patrick Danowski

2.0 Services: Will You Move Because You See the Light or Because
You Feel the Heat?

Adam Hudson / Marlo Young / Chad Zahrt

 Quality Content • Resource Management • Access • Integration • Consultation

Thank you!
Questions or comments?
Available on Slide share @ http://bit.ly/ebscosocial
Note: more details and analysis to come for the next conference:
London Online conference – 1st December 2010
For more details, please ask [email protected] or Tweet #ebscosocial