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Protection, Not Barriers: Using Social Software Policies to Guide and Safeguard Students and Employees

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Protection, Not Barriers: Using Social Software Policies to Guide and Safeguard Students and Employees Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University University Library Faculty Publications Georgia State University Library Fall 2010 Protection, Not Barriers: Using Social Software Policies to Guide and Safeguard Students and Employees Brian K. Kooy Georgia State University, [email protected] Sarah King Steiner Georgia State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/univ_lib_facpub Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Kooy, B. & Steiner, K. (2010). Protection, not barriers: Using social software policies to guide and safeguard students and employees. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 50(1), 59-71. doi: 10.5860/ rusq.50n1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Georgia State University Library at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in University Library Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FeAture Protection, not Barriers Using Social Software Policies to Guide and Safeguard Students and Employees Academic librarians have been using social outreach to include online spaces as Brian k. kooy and software and networking sites for public well. One area in which librarians are Sarah k. Steiner services since they appeared on the Inter- providing online outreach is through net. While issues of privacy, identity man- the use of social software and social Brian K. Kooy is Philosophy, Religious agement, and self-disclosure when using networking websites such as Facebook Studies, and Middle East Studies such technologies have been written about, and MySpace. Even most library blogs Librarian and Sarah K. Steiner very little critical attention has been paid have a social feature in the form of com- is Assessment and Social Work to establishing policies or guidelines related ments. While much has been written Librarian at the University Library, to their use. This article is based on the au- promoting the benefits of utilizing social Georgia State University, Atlanta, thors’ experience creating a social software software and social networking sites for Georgia. Submitted for review May policy and internal service guidelines at library outreach, little has been writ- 31, 2009; revised and accepted for Georgia State University and on the results ten regarding the need to extend basic publication December 8, 2009. of an informal survey study that gauged brick-and-mortar policies to the online academic librarians’ need for and aware- arena. The purpose of this article is to ness of such documents. It provides both fill this gap by providing reasoning and reasoning and assistance for developing assistance for developing social soft- social software guidelines that will protect ware guidelines that will protect library service providers from violating the First staff and guide patron comment post- Amendment and guide patron comment ings without hampering service. The postings. Although the study was aimed at impetus for the article was the authors’ academic librarians, the findings and sug- experience providing outreach services gestions are relevant to any institution that through social software tools at Georgia offers services via social software. State University and the development of a social software policy and internal ver the years, academic li- guidelines for the provision of those ser- brarians have developed vices. The authors discovered that such policies and guidelines to policies are essential but need not be ensure the efficient, equi- extensive or particularly restrictive; in otable, and ethical provision of services most cases their primary functions are and to guide the behavior of their users. to inform librarians and patrons of their Reference & User Services Quarterly, While these services have traditionally basic constitutional rights and provide vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 59–71 © 2010 American Library Association. been delivered in the brick-and-mortar legal guidelines for comment editing. All rights reserved. setting of the physical library, more The article begins with a brief back- Permission granted to reproduce for and more libraries are expanding their ground discussion of social software nonprofit, educational use. volume 50, issue 1 | Fall 2010 59 FeAture technologies, why librarians are using them for Recognizing the popularity of such sites with outreach, and a literature review that explores is- college students, many academic libraries have sues relevant to social software policy formation. started using social software and social network- The authors’ experience creating an external policy ing sites as a way to communicate and reach out to is then discussed, along with the problems they their users. A recent study of the 123 institutions encountered due to their misunderstanding of in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) re- First Amendment issues as they relate to publicly ported that of the 64 libraries that completed the funded institutions. Lessons learned from this ex- study, 44 (70 percent) either participate in social perience led the authors to conduct an informal networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace,6 study of social software practices at other academic or are planning on doing so.7 Although no recent institutions to determine academic librarian in- study has been conducted of non-ARL libraries, volvement with and awareness of social software an examination of several library related discus- policies, as well as the perceived and actual need sion groups on Facebook indicates that interest is for such policies. The final sections provide rea- very high. As of November 17, 2009, the group soning and assistance for developing a social soft- “Librarians and Facebook” had 11,357 members, ware policy and internal guidelines based on the the “Library 2.0 Interest Group” had 10,810 mem- results of the study and the authors’ creation of bers, and “FacebookAppsForLibraries” had 4,846 these documents. members. (As a point of comparison, the “Ameri- can Library Association Members” group had BackgroUnd and Literature 7,481 members.) Although not all of the members Review of these groups are academic librarians, the sheer number of participants demonstrates a high level Since their introduction, websites that incorpo- of interest in using social software technologies to rate social software, especially social networking connect with library users. sites (SNS), have become immensely popular. A considerable number of articles have been As of April 2008, two of the more popular sites, published during the past five years in both pro- Facebook and MySpace, attracted approximately fessional and popular literature on social software 115 million people each month.1 Although many and social networking sites. Much of the early of these visits were by casual or one-time users, library literature focused on how and why librar- a large segment of the population makes visits to ians are using such technologies as outreach tools.8 these sites a part of their daily practice. Many of One of the first survey studies to address librarian these daily users are college students, who use net- awareness and perceptions of Facebook was con- working sites to communicate and stay in touch ducted by Laurie Charnigo and Paula Barnett-Ellis. with their on- and offline friends and classmates. Their findings suggested that, while some librar- As evidence of the prevalence of the use of these ians were supportive of the use of Facebook as a sites by college students, a recent study by the communication and outreach tool, the majority Educause Center for Applied Research reported considered Facebook to lie outside the bounds that 85.2 percent of college undergraduates use of librarianship.9 Overall, however, these early one or more social networking sites to connect articles argue for library use of social software as with their on- and offline friends.2 More than a way to provide services by being in the same half of these students reported using social net- online spaces as their users. working sites daily, while another 22.7 percent Several authors have explored issues of self- reported using them weekly or several times per disclosure, identity management, and privacy week.3 Another study, conducted by the Higher in relation to social software.10 The results of a Education Research Institute at the University of study of student use of social networking sites by California, Los Angeles, found that 94 percent of Acquisti and Gross demonstrated that, while stu- first-year students spend at least some time on so- dent participants considered privacy to be an im- cial networking websites in a typical week, with 59 portant issue, most student respondents revealed percent spending between one and five hours and at least some degree of personal information and 9 percent spending more than ten hours.4 Accord- many were not aware of the controls available to ing to the Educause study, the daily use of social them within such sites to protect their privacy.11 networking sites by undergraduates has increased Cain discussed the potential dangers that social from one-third of respondents in 2006 to almost software sites pose to students’ privacy, safety, and two-thirds in 2008. The “bottom line,” according professional reputations if proper controls are not to Educause, is that “SNS usage has increased, and used,12 while Chamberlin, writing for psycholo- dramatically
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