Using social media to find collaboration, coordination and focus

For Immediate Release
Tue, 11/06/2012

Contact:

Jill Davis

Marketing Manager

ALA Editions

1-800-545-2433 ext. 5418

editionsmarketing@ala.org

CHICAGO — Web 2.0 jumpstarted librarians’ involvement with social media, and the use of Facebook, YouTube, blogs and other social media applications is now all but ubiquitous. But the turn is now toward management and consolidation. A detailed analysis of the whys of social media and the hows of getting staff and library users involved, “Managing Social Media in Libraries: Finding Collaboration, Coordination, and Focus,” published by Chandos Publishing and available through ALA Neal-Schuman, explores the developing information environment. Author Troy A. Swanson takes librarians beyond the mechanics of using social media to establish a framework for making social media effective. Providing examples of policies, workflows and uses of social media tools in action, the book is structured around such key topics as:

  • How institutions are refocusing after the first use of Web 2.0;
  • The concept of library organizations as loosely coupled systems, and how social media functions within such systems;
  • Defining a purpose for the use of social media;
  • Methods for connecting messages with tools;
  • Integrating social media into standard websites.

Swanson is teaching & learning librarian and library department chair at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Ill. He has managed the library’s Web presence since 2000. He implemented his library’s blogs in 2004 using a content management approach, and the library’s first podcasts for cultural events in 2006. He has published on library website design and usability in the Journal of Academic Librarianship and Internet Reference Services Quarterly, and has also written on information literacy instruction for college students. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on the management of Web 2.0 in higher education. He is also a guest author on the Tame the Web blog.

ALA Store purchases fund advocacy, awareness and accreditation programs for library professionals worldwide. Founded in 1976 by Patricia Glass Schuman and John Vincent Neal, ALA Neal-Schuman, now an imprint of ALA Publishing, publishes professional books for librarians, archivists, and knowledge managers. Contact us at (800) 545-2433 ext. 5418 or editionsmarketing@ala.org.