Harry Glazer Clever outreach or costly diversion? An academic library evaluates its Facebook experience

fter my presentation on “How Rutgers Profiles also allow user s to post photo albums AUniversity Libraries Market Their Librar­ and to send messages to other people who ies” at the Academic Libraries Advancement have profiles on Facebook. Once users have and Development Network (ALADN) confer­ a profile page in Facebook, they can “friend” ence in Austin, Texas, in early June 2008, I or be “friended” by other Facebook members. was taking questions. One questioner asked: The profile pictures and names of a person’s How would you assess your library’s efforts Facebook friends appear in a prominent loca­ of Facebook? tion on their Profi le page. In retrospect, I don’t think I answered Facebook members can also create or the question very well, because I had not join a Facebook group. Similar to profi le systematically thought about the question be­ pages, group pages include a picture, a wall, forehand. This article is an attempt to address contact information, and the opportunity to the challenge of carefully evaluating our library post photos. But they differ in their focus and system’s two­year experience on Facebook function. Group creators assign a descrip­ and assessing its value to us. tion to the group and select administrators. Facebook members “join” a group, and the What is Facebook? name of the group appears in a section of The Washington Post reported in June 2008 their profile page. Group membership serves that Facebook had surpassed MySpace in reli­ as a type of online identity bracelet, allowing able measures of popularity, attracting 123.9 Facebook members to identify organizations, million visitors and 50.6 billion page views causes, or interests they support or to learn worldwide in May alone.1 Facebook is, of about their friends’ interests in a nonthreaten­ course, enormously popular among college ing manner. students. It was started in 2004 as a Web site for students at Harvard and quickly elicited How we found our way onto Facebook the interest of students at other schools. There The RU Libraries embarked on our Facebook were 43,000 people registered in the Rutgers initiative in the fall 2006 semester. Our inter­ University (RU) network on Facebook in Sep­ est in Facebook was spurred by a May 2006 tember 2006 and 55,000 by July 2008.. article in College & Research Libraries News, in Facebook users register for free and create which Brian Mathews of Georgia Tech (GT) a profile page, which follows a predetermined described an initial Facebook experiment at format. Profile pages provide space for a pic­ GT.2 Further encouragement came from ob­ ture and areas for personal information, such serving student workers in the administration as relationship status and interests, educational suite, who spent hours each day checking, status and interests, and favorite music, books, TV shows, movies, and quotes. Each profile includes a wall where the user Harry Glazer is the communications director of the Rutgers University Libraries in New Jersey, e-mail: or his or her friends can post comments and [email protected] links to other Web sites, videos, or graphics. © 2009 Harry Glazer

January 2009 11 C&RL News updating, and interacting with their Facebook (a nice brass RU Libraries bookmark) to the universe. fi fth, fifteenth, and twenty­fi fth responses. Julie Still, a librarian at the Paul Robeson I received 26 replies, representing a 15 per­ Library at Rutgers­Camden, and I teamed up cent response rate. I learned that Z100, “New to launch the RU Libraries’ Facebook presence. York’s hit music station” featuring the best of Still and I posted our own individual profi les, Madonna, the Jonas Brothers, Pussycat Dolls, a prerequisite to life in Facebook, and then and other pop sensations, was the favored formed the group Inside Info @ RU Libraries. radio selection, receiving nearly one­third of Then we recruited students to join the group, the votes. What I learned about the RU Librar­ inviting members of like­minded groups on the ies though was far more interesting. Facebook Rutgers’ network, student workers The top answer to the question “What li­ in the libraries, students we met on campus, braries’ Web page have you used recently?” re­ leaders of student government, editors of stu­ ceiving five votes, was the student hometown dent papers, and others to join our group. By public libraries’ Web pages. Our e­reserves the beginning of the spring semester, we had pages received four votes, our interlibrary more than 120 members of our group. loan and e­journals received three votes, and Our initial goals for the Facebook initia­ a dozen other pages on our Web site received tive were simple—to explore the new­to­us one or two votes. medium, test its usefulness as an outlet for Though I understood that the responses sharing news about the RU Libraries, and were likely an unrepresentative sample of develop an alternative platform for contacts the student population as a whole, since with students. In that vein, we included the they were drawn only from a population following description on the Inside Info @ RU of 170 people who joined our group on Libraries profi le page: Facebook, I still found the leading answer “Library news. Library happenings. New disconcerting. resources and services that will make your In the spring of 2008, I sent out a mass e­ coursework easier and let you find the info mail to all the members of our Facebook group you want faster. Find answers to any questions asking for responses to a quick quiz about you have about the libraries.” news posted on the RU Libraries Web site, requesting the name of a librarian or libraries’ What we’ve gained service that helped them that semester, and Shortly after we set up the group, a student offering prizes. The response was decidedly posted the following comment on the wall of underwhelming —four people wrote back out our group page: “I have a very serious ques­ of about 150 group members. tion. Where can I go to get newer, fi ction type One of those respondents, however, suc­ books. Ex: the new artemis fowl for example cessfully answered the two questions I posed or just artemis fowl in general.” and included the following comments: I wrote back and told the student about our “I was doing research through the Aresty interlibrary loan service, provided a link to the Research Center for Undergraduates this year service, and said she could probably get the and the library’s resources were amazingly book within five­to­seven business days. She helpful!! I met with two research librarians wrote back, thanked me for my response, and who were extremely helpful in fi guring out we never heard from her again. where to begin looking for information—Sara In the spring of 2007, I experimented with Harrington and Kayo Denda. The ILL was the Facebook group by sending a message to extremely helpful in finding some semi­rare all members, asking them: 1) What was their books on my narrow research topic. … I love favorite radio station? 2) What libraries Web the resources that the libraries offer!” page, besides the catalog, did they use recent­ I shared the comments with our univer­ ly? And was it helpful? I promised small prizes sity librarian and suggested that we include

C&RL News January 2009 12 the quote in our glossy annual report. She her eyes watery, and told me how much readily agreed. she appreciated the feedback because the newspaper’s student staff had received a What also worked, splendidly . . . and deluge of criticism on the parody. a qualifi cation I spoke with the editor a little while lon­ In the fall 2006 semester I noticed that one ger and she asked me what new projects the of the resources I’d plugged in a very brief RU Libraries were working on. I mentioned posting on our group’s wall, a set of music the Facebook initiative, gave her the name of databases, was covered in a front­page our group, and invited her to visit the page. story in the Daily Targum, the daily student Within the next week the editor friended me newspaper. In my experience, a new librar­ on Facebook and joined the group. ies’ database rarely gains coverage in the Once someone else becomes my friend student newspaper. Rarer still is a front­page on Facebook, they receive an update about story. I wondered if there was a Facebook me on their Facebook homepage whenever connection. I change something on my profile page or The following Friday, the Daily Targum post something on someone else’s wall. This praised the libraries in an editorial for in­ “News Feeds” feature, however, does not creasing information access at the university encompass changes to a group page. But for students, despite budget cuts at the it does report on a posting I place on the university due to decreased state aid. As an group’s wall. Piecing all this together, it oc­ example the Daily Targum cited our addi­ curred to me that it was most likely that the tion of two new databases to our Web site. Daily Targum began noticing the RU Librar­ The editorial added another reason to praise ies activity on our Facebook group page after the RU Libraries: “Furthermore, the library the editor started receiving news feeds when has established a group on Facebook, dis­ I posted something to the group’s wall. seminating news and information regarding the libraries to students in a manner that will Measuring the value reach them more effectively. “ The preceding stories demonstrate that an The proximity in the Daily Targum col­ academic library’s presence on Facebook umn of praise of our new music databases can produce worthwhile results. Yet it is to mention of our Facebook group appeared hard to predict what those results will be, to confirm the connection between the two. and sometimes the benefit received dif­ This apparent connection continued. Early in fered markedly from what we were initially the spring 2007 semester the Daily Targum seeking. ran a story about our instituting extended Another “fuzzy” byproduct of our Face­ evening hours, which I traced to an item book initiative is that it has provided the I posted on our Facebook group’s wall. impetus for me to initiate conversations with Later that semester, the paper ran a large student workers in the RU Libraries and re­ front­page story focused entirely on the RU fine my understanding of how to shape news Libraries’ efforts on Facebook. communications to elicit students’ interest. I realized weeks later that the very favor­ For me these conversations, and the resulting able RU Libraries’ Facebook group/Daily improvement in my work, have been one Targum connection could be attributed to one particular personal connection. In Oc­ Online extra tober I’d visited the offices of the newspaper and complimented the editor on the Daily Visit the January 2009 issue of C&RL Targum’s printed apology for its parody is­ News online at www.acrl.org/c&rlnews for a podcast interview with article sue, which many, including myself, found author Harry Glazer. unduly crude. The editor looked back at me,

January 2009 13 C&RL News of the most rewarding benefits of the RU are first­year or transfer students, the number Libraries Facebook initiative. of stories posted to the group’s wall tailored to their interests, and the number of respondents Metrics for the future to a monthly quiz about the postings. In looking back over the first two years of A second goal of our Facebook activities our Facebook initiative, it is clear that our in 2008­09 will focus on rebuilding one of the initial goals were practical and realistic, yet assets we observed in the first year of the proj­ poorly defined. It thus proves diffi cult to ect: relationships with student workers at the measure the value of the initiative versus the student newspaper. I plan to make a special time and the hopes invested. For the coming effort in early fall 2008 to recruit reporters, edi­ year I plan to focus our Facebook activity on tors, and photographers of the Daily Targum two measurable goals that should allow us to the RU Libraries’ Facebook group. Success to test the utility of the medium with greater can be assessed by the number of new group precision and reliability. members who work at the newspaper and the One goal of our Facebook activities will number of newspaper stories printed about be to recruit incoming students to the RU the RU Libraries’ in 2008­09 that were fi rst Libraries’ Facebook group and to post short promoted on our group’s wall. items to the group’s wall (with links to full news stories) that reflect the interests of this Still … population. Incoming students are a primary I’m eager to revise our approach to the target audience of our 2008­09 marketing Facebook initiative in the next year so we plan, so this goal dovetails well with the plan. can more reliably measure its effectiveness. Success can be measured by the number of I’m mindful, though, that our efforts in this new members in our Facebook group who (continues on page 19)

Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, ranked among the nation’s top five schools of education, offers innovative summer programs for education professionals, including:

The Summer Institute for Academic Library Leadership June 28-July 2, 2009 Nashville, Tennessee

For additional information or to begin an application for consideration as a summer fellow, visit peabody.vanderbilt. edu/ppi.xml or call (615) 343-6222. For priority consideration, applications are due by February 27, 2009. PPI has a limited number of IMLS-funded scholarships available for leaders of libraries in historically black colleges and universities, tribal colleges, and Hispanic- serving institutions.

C&RL News January 2009 14 2. These ideas are explored in Stephen Leckie and John Hopkins, “The public place Carr, et al., Public space (New York, NY: of central libraries: Findings from Toronto and Cambridge University Press, 1992). Vancouver,” Library Quarterly, 72 (2002): 326­ 3. Henri Lefebvre, The production of space, 372. and Howard Silver, “Use of collaborative trans. Donald Nicholson­Smith (Cambridge, spaces in an academic library” (PhD diss., MA: Blackwell, 1992). Simmons College, 2007), digitalcommons. 4. See www.pps.org/civic_centers/ for bryant.edu/library_misc/1 links to examples of PPS library projects. In 7. Harold Shill and Shawn Tonner, “Creat­ addition, PPS staff participated in a BCLA 2008 ing a better place: Physical improvements in pre­conference and are invited speakers at academic libraries, 1995 – 2002,” College & the OLA Super Conference in 2009. Research Libraries, 64 (2003): 431–66. 5. Project for Public Spaces, How to turn 8. Lyman Ross and Pongracz Sennyey, a place around (New York, NY: Project for “The library is dead, long live the library! The Public Spaces, 2002). practice of academic librarianship and the 6. For relevant examples using observation, digital revolution,” The Journal of Academic questionnaires, and interviews, see Gloria Librarianship, 34 (2008): 145–52.

(“Clever outreach...” cont. from page 14) medium, and our attempts to assess their and rewarding extensions of established rela­ value, are still a “work in progress.” I believe tionships. These benefits, though prized, are that the value of immersing in a medium not predictable. strongly favored by students, and becoming Facebook is worth more to us than those more familiar with their styles of engagement, rewards. Our work on Facebook opens the is difficult to fully or fairly evaluate. We’ve door for us to the conversations, diversions, learned that Facebook activities can lead to attitudes, and social habits of one of our critical useful information about students’ preferences, audiences. To serve this group well, it helps to positive press coverage, terrifi c testimonials, understand them as best we can.

University of Oklahoma Libraries presents

Redefining Relevance: Exceeding User Expectations in a Digital Age March 5-6, 2009 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Speakers:

Barbara I. Dewey – University of Tennessee Libraries Ronald G. Dunn – Cengage Learning Brinley Franklin – University of Connecticut Libraries Fred Heath – University of Texas Libraries Anne Kenney – Cornell University Library James G. Neal – Columbia University Libraries Bernard F. Reilly – Center for Research Libraries Carton Rogers – University of Pennsylvania Library http://libraries.ou.edu/conference

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: February 13, 2009

Contact for Information: Rhonda Cannon, University of Oklahoma Libraries, Norman, OK 73019; [email protected]; Phone: 405-325-2611

January 2009 19 C&RL News