Record of a Day - UWS Social Medians Visit Whittaker Library

Evidence of a great visit!  We do enjoy talking to our counterparts about issues that we all hold dear!

Library Social Medians!

Meet Whittaker!

Social Media: Library Outreach and Professional Networking

We're having a get-together with social medians from the University of the West of Scotland library service tomorrow. It'll be a good opportunity to talk about what they do, and what we do at the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

• We blog (here, on Whittaker Live)
• We tweet @WhittakerLib    https://twitter.com/WhittakerLib
• We do Facebook    https://www.facebook.com/wheesht/
•  We do Pinterest for visual things https://uk.pinterest.com/whittakerlibrar



And here's Twittaker!

• And we do MailChimp for news about electronic resources  http://mailchimp.com/ 

 Sometimes Karen wonders if you can have too much of a good thing, because she also uses social media for research purposes, too.  And then she talks about it (the social media, and the research) - here's something she blogged about a couple of years ago.  Things have changed a bit since then, research-wise, but you might find this summary interesting:- 

The Jungle Beat of the Tweet

(And this is Karen's all-purpose research and teaching blog.  Libraries do get a mention, but in a rather different way!  https://karenmcaulay.wordpress.com/)

Copyright Advice for Administrators, Academics and Librarians from LSE

We thought we had posted the last word in copyright advice in our recent blogpost, but of course, we're not the only library sharing helpful advice about what's legal and what, frankly, is not.

The London School of Economics recently posted this, which may be a useful addition to your favourites:- Nine things you need to know about copyright: A good practice guide for administrators, librarians and academics.

Libraries can be Inspirational in Surprising Ways - like this Harping Hare!

 

How do you like this harp-playing hare?  He was standing on an illuminated letter in a mediaeval manuscript that was shared with us on Twitter.  A few hours later, a modern interpretation was adorning a music folder. 

 

Just one of the many ways you can find inspiration in a library! So - tell us about yours!

Getting to Know the Neighbours: The Mitchell Library

Wikipedia image of  Mitchell Library, Glasgow, UK.

Well, the Mitchell isn't exactly next-door, but it's certainly good to know about Glasgow's flagship public library.

Mitchell Library website

What Makes A Good Blog? Twelve Tips for Library Bloggers

WHAT MAKES A GOOD BLOG?

We looked at our blog traffic over the past month.  How many people actually visited, and were there any patterns?  Well yes, actually – there were!

1. The bottom line is, you have to keep posting.  If you don’t post, the visitors don’t visit.  The more you post, the more they visit. 
2. Schedule your blogposts! You can schedule in Blogger and Wordpress.  This helps take care of days when you know you won’t be around to post.
3. Be sure to share your posts on Twitter, and use something like Bufferapp to schedule tweets too:  http://bufferapp.com
4. Take care with headings.  Once you’ve uploaded your post, the hyperlink won’t change. So use catchy headings with words that Google can find; you can change the blogpost heading later if you need to.
5. Always add keywords/tags.  Try to make these consistent over time.
6. Know your audience – what makes them tick?
7. Know your product – we’re a library, so our main concern is to promote physical and electronic resources, not to mention our ever-helpful library staff! 
8. In a library context, e-resources attract interest.  So does copyright, interesting new stock, musicians’ health, music competitions, creativity, learning and research skills, and employability. 
9. Weblinks are good.  Readers want to know where they can find more.
10. Don’t try to write a scholarly essay, and keep the blogposts a reasonable length.
11. Have a conversational tone: expressions like “the musicologists amongst us” are not inclusive, and won’t really even attract the musicologists!  You want readers to react with, “Hey, this is for me!”, and not “Oh, stuffy academics again”. 
12. Be the same age as your audience.  No, that’s silly – obviously we’re kidding!  Your audience could be any age.  Students can be any age.  Staff can be marginally older than students, or heading for retirement.  You cannot be the same age as your audience, but you can try to ensure that your posts will appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

Library Camp: not a Teddy Bears' Picnic!

Karen went to an "unconference" on Saturday - Scotland's first library camp. 

Curious?  Here's what caught the attention of several dozen Scottish librarians:- http://gltweeps.wordpress.com/library-camp-glasgow/ - and here's the blog about it.  There was also a Storify assemblage collating delegates' impressions of the whole event.

Creativity in libraries was one subject that came up, courtesy of Delphine Dallison at Glasgow School of Art. This prompted Karen to indulge in a bit of reflective writing of her own.  You can read it here, on her Airs and Graces CPD blog.

Being off-duty librarians, we had a couple of competitions - one was to make one's own badge.  The results were quite something, so the organisers made a collage to show you - here. 

Studying with Special Needs: Some Personal Narratives

Back in 2005, when Karen was in a group for academic librarians providing disability support, she wrote an article for Library Review, about studying with special needs, and how libraries can help.

The article is still attracting interest - Emerald reminded her that there's a live link to it, if your library subscribes to Library Review.  So, here it is:-

Title:	Studying with special needs: some personal narratives
Author(s):	Karen E. McAulay, (Music and Academic Services Librarian, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow, UK)
Citation:	Karen E. McAulay, (2005) "Studying with special needs: some personal narratives", Library Review, Vol. 54 Iss: 8, pp.486 - 491
Keywords:	Academic libraries, Disabled people, Scotland
Article type:	Conceptual paper

Live Link

Love Books? Some Places to Escape!

Drama Librarian Alan Jones shares this link with our readers :- 

The 30 Best Places to Be if You Love Books