Tuesday, February 7, 2023

The School Library Program and Social Media

Not too long ago there was an opinion that social media had no place in education. Many educators thought it was simply a distraction, parents were worried about potential dangers to their children, and no one really expected to see how it would take over our lives. But here we are in 2023, and there are a number of social media apps that we use for just about everything. In this post, I want to break down how the top three apps, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can be useful and important for a school library program. 

Let's start with the oldest, Facebook. Not to brag or anything, but I joined in college, back when it required you to have a college email address to sign in. At the time it was only for college students to connect, network, and well, be social! We used to create silly groups, post our questionable pictures, and write inside jokes on each other's "walls." 

Today, Facebook has evolved into an open social media app that does almost everything and is used by everyone, but mostly anyone past college age. I personally know a few younger people who have Facebook accounts but do not use them. Facebook's user base has aged quite a bit and it's not the place to reach out to students. It is mostly used for personal purposes, from what I
have seen. If I were to use Facebook for my school library program, I would create a page for the school library, and ensure that information gets out to the parents and community stakeholders. I would update it with information relevant to those particular groups. 

When I searched "school libraries" on Facebook, it was hard for me to find many pages for school libraries. There are great professional groups on Facebook, such as the Future Ready Librarians group I am a part of. This, along with other groups such as Learning Librarians offer a community where librarians can share, discuss, and ask about all things school library related. There were some pages for particular school libraries, made by the school librarian. These pages included relevant log-in information for library apps, pictures and flyers of activities and events at the library, along with book recommendations, and contact information for the librarian. 

Overall, I believe school librarians can use their personal Facebook as a great resource for learning and connecting to a larger community, and create a page for their school library for parents and community members as the primary audience. 

Moving on to an app that is relatively new to me, if you can believe it,  Twitter. Truth be told, I have yet to use Twitter in any way. But finally taking time to set up and explore some names in the education, technology, and library science world has been helpful to understand the attraction: it's quick. There isn't a lot of editing and curating involved like other social media sites. What you see is essentially what you get. There's a bit of professionalism and personal lives attached to our tweets. 

When I perused Jim Lerman's tweets @jimlerman I got the opportunity to delve into lots of tech ed articles that he tweets like this one about Artificial Intelligence in education, which is fascinating because I've been hearing about AI and ChatGPT a lot lately, and I have been completely clueless. 

Another account I recently started following is @kathyshrock who does some great promotion for herself and her colleagues in her tweets. Her last few tweets have been about her speaking engagement at FETC. Her account is private otherwise I would definitely share some of her tweets. 

Another feature of Twitter that can be educational is simply retweeting. You wouldn't think it's helpful, but sometimes others share something so great you simply have to retweet it to your followers. @lbraun2000 hasn't tweeted anything recently but retweeted a lot of goodies, such as this


 

I believe if I were to start tweeting regularly from my professional account, it would look similar to @GwynethJones who posts a mix of personal and professional tweets. I personally found this one really interesting because I've noticed this huge trend of finding dupes for high-end products.



Now if we can turn our attention to my personal favorite social media app and tool, Instagram. Sure, there is an aesthetic side to Instagram where people can curate an artistic and visually appealing grid, but the reality is that students use Instagram. You can create stories, reels, highlights, and of course pictures with captions. You can reach students to promote activities at the library, reminders for lessons and events, polls for kids to interact with, fun reels and stories that kids can browse through, and literally so many others. 

I used Instagram during the COVID lockdown to interact with students and post class announcements and reminders, and it was a big success. I've just created a professional librarian account where I hope to review diverse books specific to the South Asian continent. I hope you don't mind some self-promotion here (ahem, it's part of the school library program!) It is definitely a work in progress, so bear with me. 


Here is a quick peek at my account

 


If you're in education and you are not an active participant in the social media world professionally, you are missing out on opportunities to connect with stakeholders, students, and your professional community. Get to it!

Find me:

Instagram: theunshelvedlibrarian

Twitter: @asmsiddi

Facebook: currently don't have a professional one; hope to make one when I'm a school librarian

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