LIVE from Web 2.0 NY Expo Wed - Building A Social Library

Building a Social Library

New York Public Library As collections increasingly turn digital and eBooks become ubiquitous, libraries are also changing how they connect with patrons. The New York Public Library, one of the largest in the United States, has become the number one public library in the world in social media, leveraging staff and social tools to connect hundreds of thousands of users with its collections and services.

- New York Public Library is one of the largest library in the US

- 18 million visitors who come - Active in the social media with FB fans, etc.

- 90 Locations and divisions Our Catalog

Core of our library

- 12 million visits on the website

- people are using other tools to find out besides the library

- Connect and Collaborate is a new concept they have applied

- previously: Look for book > Find a book > Read a book

- Biblio Commons was a good solution

- Change: adding social tools for users with comments, rating, and community.

- Community tag is a huge factor as it extends beyond typical library description Crowdsourcing NYPL's Research Collections

Working with various online sites and users who can contribute to NYPL's collection.

- Georectify historical maps - taking old map, overlaying to new map that can be more relevant to tools used now

- Onsite workshop has really helped with this mapping process

- Menu Collection - taking learning from mapping process, they have extended their menu collection

-- goal - datamine the information for various areas of research

-- solution - menus.nypl.org - database and collection of the menu online

-- users are transcribing the image on the site and are getting social Using Social Media to Reach the Mainstream Media

using social media and blog to communicate to increase audience

- goal: always creating compelling stories

-- example: Keith Richards kills orchid with secondhand smoke

-- going viral and getting picked up by the press

-- making it easier for the press with blogs

-- sharing photos from events on Facebook page

-- results - positive mentions have tripled since using social media Network and Framework of NYPL

Digital Foundation Initiative

- Expand usage of social media

- Training staff for social media with social media rules, guidelines, and strategy

- Team effort not having a dedicated resource

- Facebook page - 40K fans

- Foursquare - NYPL badge and effectively following users