Engaging Social Media? A Case Study of University Library Community Building Practices on Twitter from Norway. - April2017

Engaging Social Media? A Case Study of University Library Community Building Practices on Twitter from Norway.

Hilde Drivenes Johannessen

Birgitte Kleivset

University of Agder, Norway

Hilde.Johannessen@uia.no

Birgitte.Kleivset@uia.no

This paper presents results from a case study of community building practices on Twitter in Norwegian University Libraries, using a combination of a qualitative and a quantitative approach. The analysis aims to highlight how academic libraries tweet content (and speech acts?) that may build a community with two-way communication and engagement with researchers and students. Our research also sheds light on recent developments and current challenges in University Libraries use of Twitter in theory and practice, and give some critical perspectives on information literacy and digital library community engagement.

Methodology

The dataset for this research is collected from the twitter timelines of the norwegian university libraries with a presence at Twitter. This is public available data. In addition to tweet content, the frequency of favoritemarking, retweets, answeres and hashtags are retrieved. There will also be a cathegorization of the group each of the libraries have chosen to follow.

Using five principles of Social Media Optimization (SMO), defined in the study “Social media optimization: making library content shareable and engaging” by Doralyn Rossmann and Scott W.H. Young (2015) the objectives will be analyzed accordingly: 

 

(1) create sharable content:

1.1. Topic: 

•  We used Zhao et al.’s (Zhao and Jiang 2011) definitions for topic and type
• A topic is a subject discussed in one or more tweets (e.g., Boston Marathon bombings, Red Sox, etc). The type characterizes the nature of the topic, these are: 
1. Entity-oriented - Bibliotekets samlinger
2. Event-oriented topics - Arrangementer, Tekniske oppdateringer, Undersøkelser, Q and A, (Utstillinger, Åpningstider) 
3. Long-standing topics -  (IK, Open Access) Community, Ansatte, Club.  

1.2. Speech Acts 

• Using Searle’s speech act taxonomy (Searle 1976), we established a list of six speech act categories that are commonly seen on Twitter: 
• A Assertion (Påstand)
• R Recommendation (Anbefaling)
• E Expression (Uttrykk) 
• Q Question (Spørsmål) 
• R Request (be om) 
• M Miscellaneous (diverse).

#

(2) make sharing easy; 

means "putting tools in place to encourage sharing content" (2015:529) ex: hashtags; a type of metadata tag used on social network and microblogging services, which makes it easier for users to find messages with a specific theme or content. For example, on twitter the hashtag #informationliteracy may allow users to find all the posts that have been tagged using that hashtag. 

University libraries hachtags january-march 2017
@ubtromso 
63 hashtags
#tromsø #endnote #referansehåndtering #munin #harstad #narvik #mittub #openaccess #openresearchdata #informasjonskompetanse

@HVLBibliotek
#åretsbibliotek

@HSNbiblioteket 
#hyvik #tokulturlæra #forskningsformidling #bøbibliotek

@hioaLSB
#samenesnasjonaldag #hioa #openaire_eu

@NTNU_UB
#sami #manuskript #arkitektur #dnt #ntnu_ub #jubileum #ntnuub #reformasjonen #bibliotek #privatarkiv

@ubistavanger
# 0 

@UbAgder 
#fagdagen2017 #uga2017 #bibliotekuga #ubagder #beatart #uiagder #kvalitetsmeldingen #akademiskskriving #tråante2017 #akademiskpåskeegg

 @UBOslo
#humsambiblioteket #resbazoslo #skrivesenter #gledenmedskjeden #browzine #studentbiblioteketsophusbugge #akademiskskrivesenter #openscience

@UiB_UB  
0 

(3) reward engagement;  
"actively monotoring user interaction" "giving recognition for such behavior" Libraries may also search for hashtags or words associated with the library to identify conversation around library resources and services, and follow students, researchers and libraries on Twitter, and "connect users to otherwise unknown resources and services" (2015: 534) 

User interactions:

@ubtromso
replies: 3%
following: 396 


@HVLBibliotek
replies: 0% following: 295


@HSNbiblioteket 
replies: 4% (til seg selv)
following: 191


@hioaLSB
replies: 0%
following: 1108 


@NTNU_UB
replies: 4%
following: 361

@ubistavanger
replies: 0% 
following: 130


@UbAgder 
replies: 3% 
following: 926

 @UBOslo
replies: 11%
following: 1340

@UiB_UB
replies: 0
following: 905

@

(4) proactively share; 

user mentions - tagging others (andre institusjonskontoer) can further engage the community 

@ubtromso



@HVLBibliotek


@HSNbiblioteket 



@hioaLSB
 

@NTNU_UB


@ubistavanger



@UbAgder 


 @UBOslo


@UiB_UB

%

(5) encourage reuse

social share buttons

- literally - speech act: share!!!(lik og del)

"social trust and connectedness"

These principles has been modified and updated from Bhargavas (2006, 2010) established principles of SMO (Rossmann and Young, 529:2015b), and in our paper we will apply and modify these concepts into ten norwegiean university libraries use of Twitter as a community building network. The outcome of this research is expected to give insight into effective community building methods and techniques for use in the university library community on Twitter.

Keywords
library community building, engagement, social media, emerging technologies, information literacy, twitter

Bibliography

·       Bhargava, R. (2006) “5 rules of social media optimization (SMO)” Influential Marketing Blog, available at http://www.rohitbhargava.com/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html

·       Bhargava, R. (2010) “The 5 new rules of social media optimization (SMO)” Influential Marketing Blog, available at http://www.rohitbhargava.com/2010/08/the-5-new-rules-of-social-media-optimization-smo.html

·       Palmer, S. (2014) “ Characterizing University Library Use of Social Media: A Case Study of Twitter and Facebook from Australia. The Journal of Academic Librarianship. Vol. 40. p. 611-619.

·       Young, S.W.H. and Rossmann, D. (2015a). Building Library Community Through Social Media. Information Technology and Libraries. Vol.34. No.1. p. 20-37.

·       Young, S.W.H. and Rossmann, D. (2015b). Social media optimization: making library content shareable and engaging. Vol. 33. No. 4. p. 526-544.