Social Media Use in Libraries

I just reviewed Marketing with Social Media (A LITA Guide), edited by Beth C. Thomsett-Scott. It was published by ALA TechSource in 2014, and costs $60.90 on Amazon (ISBN 9781555709723).

I haven't been heavily involved in the use of social media in libraries, but this book makes a good case for how and why it can be succesful. It's clear that whether you use blogs, twitter, facebook, or another platform for your marketing efforts, it takes a lot of time to do it thoughtfully. In preparation for writing my review, I used the subject headings in the LC CIP data block to find other books on the same topic. The top two subject headings were Libraries--Marketing, and Online social networks--Library applications. I used the latter to search in our own catalog, Minerva, and found many other books on the topic:

• Laura Solomon. The librarian's nitty-gritty guide to social media. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2013.
• Charles Harmon, Michael Messina, editors. Using social media in libraries: best practices. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, 2013.
• Terry Ballard. Google this!: Putting Google and other social media sites to work for your library. Oxford: Chandos, 2012.
• Melissa A. Purcell. The networked library: A guide for the educational use of social networking sites. Santa Barbara, CA: Linworth/ABC-CLIO, 2012.
• Sarah K. Steiner. Strategic planning for social media in libraries. Chicago: ALA TechSource, 2012.
• Troy A. Swanson. Managing social media in libraries: Finding collaboration, coordination and focus. Oxford: Chandos, 2012.
• Laura Solomon. Doing social media so it matters: A librarian's guide. Chicago: ALA, 2011.
• Cliff Landis. A social networking primer for librarians. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2010.

I did a quick search on WorldCat, and found several similar titles published in the past few years:

• Walt Crawford. Successful social networking in public libraries. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2014.
• Denise A. Garofalo. Building communities: Social networking for academic libraries. Oxford: Chandos, 2013.
• Joe Murphy. Location-aware services and QR codes for libraries. Chicago: ALA TechSource, 2012.

These twelve books (counting the one I just reviewed) were all published in the last four years, and I'm sure there are many more on the same topic that we don't have in our collection. I find it interesting that there are three published by ALA Editions, three by ALA TechSource, three by Chandos, and one each by Scarecrow, Linworth/ABC-CLIO, and Neal-Schuman (now part of ALA Editions).  Obviously, a hot topic!

Research Data Management

I recently reviewed a book for Catholic Library World called Delivering Research Data Management Services: Fundamentals of Good Practice. It was published in 2014 by Facet, and was edited by Graham Pryor, Sarah Jones, and Angus Whyte. (242 pages; available from Amazon for $94.95; ISBN 9780856049337). My review won't be published until June, and I don't want to repeat what's in the review, so I will just say that I found this book to be interesting and informative. It consists of five chapters addressing practical considerations for organizations that want to provide research data services, and five case studies of services provided by Johns Hopkins University, University of Southampton (UK), Monash University (Australia), the UK Data Service, and the Jisc Managing Research Data program.

Graham Pryor had previously edited a collection called Managing Research Data (Facet, 2012. 239 pages, ISBN 9781856047562.) It is more of an introduction to this topic, and addresses why research data needs to be managed, the lifecycle of data management, research data policies, planning, roles and responsibilities, and more. I've added this book to my reading list as well as another that I think will also be useful:

Joyce M. Ray. Research Data Management: Practical Strategies for Information Professionals. Purdue University Press, 2014. 300 pages. ISBN 9781557536648.

I'll be looking into the journal literature a little later.