A report says that social media have a big part to play in local authorities. The report is summarsied briefly publictechnology.NET

'Gibson highlighted one of the key issues facing councils and social media today. “The problem for councils though, is that not toc

engaging now represents a far greater risk than engaging. Citizens will still use these networks to talk about you, whether you add your voice to the conversation or not. Citizens will expect their council to engage with them on their terms, via their channels, and to be openly available online,” he added. “In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that if councils don’t use these tools, the citizens will do it for them, and bypass the council entirely.” '

The report 'Local by social. How local authorities can use social media to achieve more for less.' By Andy Gibson. Nesta. March 2010 was is available from the IDeA website.

'Social media: why ICT management should lead their organisations to embrace it'

Published Monday 18th January 2010

'Public sector heads of ICT should be taking the lead in encouraging councils to embrace social media and not be party to moves to block staff from using these important new tools for business, says the latest report from Socitm Insight.

In fact, according to a survey of IT managers published in Social media: why ICT management should lead their organisations to embrace it, many councils currently take a cautious view of social media'

Do You Web 2.0?: Public libraries and social networking. By Linda Berube, New edition June 2011.

‘The author not only reviews these tools and provides practical advice and case studies on how they can be applied in the public library setting, but also recommends the policies and business cases that begin to create a new strategy for public libraries.’

The Welsh Libraries and Web 2.0 Report October 2010

The report is a snap-shot of the views of librarians of the use of Web 2.0 in libraries in Wales. It compares access by the different library sectors to different types of Web 2.0 technologies and also looks at what libraries are doing and what they would like to do with Web 2.0 technologies. The report is also available to download via the CyMAL website

'25 barriers to using Web 2.0 technologies and how to overcome them' By Phil Bradley (undated but sometime in 2010). The barriers which Phil discusses include:

It’s just a flash in the pan; We can’t measure how effective this is; We don’t have the time to do this”

We have to get it right first time ; What if the application goes down? ;We don’t own the resource and can’t brand it; We can’t have a blog because someone might write nasty things in the comments; There are security implications; It’s an IT issue, and not your job; These tools change the way in which we would work. Our bureaucracy couldn’t work with that; What if our staff spend all day on social networking sites?; We’ve never done it this way before, and our users won’t like it!; We can’t rely on resources that may disappear at any time, be bought by another company or which may be in any way unreliable

Cutural Heritage blog (UKOLN)

Linda Berube makes sone intersting comments in her positing:

'If a Tree Falls in the Forest (pt.1). Cultural Heritage blog (UKOLN.) By Guest (Linda Berube) August 2nd, 2010

extracts are below…

key questions – what, why, and how – of any service development, Web 2.0-based or otherwise, the answers to which should provide the objectives for evaluation, not as a separate activity, but one that is integral to the service from the beginning.

Because the technology is low-to-no cost, quite a few librarians have given into the temptation ‘to experiment’ with Web 2.0, thus setting themselves up for a common enough trap: high expectation meets low return. Librarians might say they don’t have high expectations when they start using these tools, but when blog posts are met with deafening silence, or when no one wants to be a ‘Friend’ or ‘Follower’ or ‘Fan’ of the library’s on a social networking site, such as Twitter or Facebook, it’s hard not to feel rejected and to turn this bitterness against the technology. (“It works for some libraries, just not for ours.”)

So, if numbers are required as a marker of success, which is often the case for public libraries, then the use of blogs, wikis, and especially social networking services must be very focused: not just to encourage participation but to ensure relevance and success. If we accept that it is the service and its support of users going about their business that should be the focus, and not the gratuitous use of technology because it is new, then what we need to identify is the service, the purpose of the service, and what success looks like.

For instance, the library wants to start a reading group for the housebound: a virtual book group sounds like a good idea, and a number of Web 2.0 tools can support this activity. In this case, critical success factors could include:

• everybody in the book club to be signed on as a friend to a Facebook page;

• a calendar of events to be created and sign up to an RSS feed of events to be encouraged;

• one book discussion meeting a month to be held on Facebook;

• an agreed level of participation that is considered successful (maybe based on how many “show up” for book discussions), etc.

Evaluation is this simple, and it is eminently measurable – a thriving book discussion group on Facebook, which opens this library activity up to the housebound and physically challenged. This is what success looks like for our book discussion club, and it can be measured, whether the days are early or late.

By Sarah Hammond. Cultural Heritage

A UKOLN Blog for the Cultural Heritage sector. July 5th, 2010

In this post she writes about the findings of her research into the blogging activities of UK public libraries, carried out as part of her MA in Librarianship

Extract:-

Attitudes to Library 2.0: why aren’t UK public libraries blogging?

The trends that emerged may not come as a great surprise:

• technological barriers presented by IT departments

• barriers presented by prevailing organisational culture

• apathy of library staff, lack of engagement

• a feeling that social networking has no relevance to what a library should be doing

• a lack of time to devote to content creation

• use of other methods of communication deemed more appropriate

The survey responses gathered for this study did seem to fall into both extremes of this debate: that public libraries should definitely be engaging with Library 2.0, that they definitely should not, and every shade in between. Many respondents felt that their library had something of value to be added to the Internet via a blog or any other social networking tool. Many felt organisational resistance to blogging, from other staff and from management. Others felt their enthusiasm met with ambivalence and apathy rather than out-and-out hostility. Many respondents said they felt that their IT departments were resistant to librarians engaging with Library 2.0, a commonly-used phrase referred to the IT department as “gatekeepers” in a derogatory sense. This attitude tended to prevail in the US respondents. Herring et al. (2005) posited blogs as bridging genre, removing the necessity to be so reliant on the IT department to create content and Farkas (2007) has recommended blogging as a means of taking control from webmasters for the information the library puts out about itself and delivering into the hands of the librarians themselves.

The LIS-WEB2 discussion list (LIS-WEB2@JISCMAIL.AC.UK

From Phil Bradley's web site:

'Web 2.0 tools, apps and resources for collaboration, communication, RSS, images, start pages, weblogs, wikis and more. Emphasis is on libraries, librarians and information work'.

In a lis-pub-libs: (UK Public Libraries) listserbve posting in November 2009 (LIS-PUB-LIBS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK) The following resource were listed by Kathy Shiel, Corporate Records Manager. Records Management Service Northumberland County Council

Socitm's 2008 report entitled Web 2.0 and social networking: what they are and why they matter – a briefing for public sector managers. SOCITM, August 08: ISBN 1904414877 [This should be required reading for anybody working for a local authority with any responsibility for community engagement, or new technologies. It's written for ICT Managers in local authorities and tries to persuade them of the importance of embracing Web 2.0 technology – original respondent's comments].

A fledging wiki.

[The wiki is attempting to record Web 2.0 activity in UK public libraries and provide a forum for sharing ideas and (hopefully) business cases – original respondent's comments]. The URL is http://librariesandweb2@wetpaint.com .

How to write a corporate strategy http://neilojwilliams.net/missioncreep/2009/how-to-write-a-corporate-twitter-strategy-and-heres-one-i-made-earlier/

Social media strategies

Social Networking Business Casesample business case by West Dunbartonshire Libraries, shared under CC licencing for re-use.

A Guide to Web 2.0 in Libraries by the Scottish Library & Information Council (SLIC).

**Web 2.0 Legal Toolkit** by JISC.

Creating a social media plan for a museum

This is an article summarising some key issues in social networking practice for museums.

**Government document on the use of Twitte**r

[I found this really useful - KS]. [You can read more from its author here. Personally, I felt it gave a good set of guidance principles, some of which your organisation might choose to follow – original respondent's comments].

Hootsuite -

a third party application for managing Twitter and other web 2.0 sites. [I’ve started using this myself as a result, and can see the benefits that someone in an organisation can control direct access to all the Twitter streams and grant privileges to others who can then access specific accounts within HootSuite. You can’t have a rogue member of staff deleting an account or following the wrong sort of accounts – which seems sensible – original respondent's comments]

'Note Pad' may be of help - see http://carlhaggerty.wordpress.com/page/5/ - [lots there to browse/contemplate - original respondent's comments].

Some articles that may be useful from Mashable

http://mashable.com/2009/04/27/social-media-policy/

http://mashable.com/2009/06/02/social-media-policy-musts/

'Thoughts on Facebook, Linked Data and Other Developments' By Brian Kelly (UK Web Focus) 29 March 2011

'Last week saw a number of interesting Facebook developments which may have implications for the higher and further education sector. A new Facebook feature, Facebook Questions, was rolled out to all users on March 24 and the following day an Operation Developer Love: Facebook Hack Day took place in Berlin which generated some interesting discussions on Twitter'.

A list of social media policies from various companies including not for profits and commercial organisations http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php

There are a couple of American Library Association 'Library Technology Reports' By Michael Stephens (not free)

(1) Web 2.0 & Libraries, Part 2; Trends and technologies' By Michael Stephens. Library Technology Reports. ALA. 2007 http://www.alatechsource.org/ltr/web-20-libraries-part-2-trends-and-technologies

(2) Web 2.0 and Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software' By Michael Stepehens. Library Technology Reports. ALA. 2006. http://www.alatechsource.org/ltr/web-20-and-libraries-best-practices-for-social-software