Building Communities: Social Networking for Academic Libraries

Social media is here to stay. A robust social media campaign can provide academic libraries with a means to showcase library resources, highlight content and events, and attract students to sample what the library has to offer. Building Communities is a handbook to implement social media technologies for academic libraries. It is a guide to planning and implementing a successful social media campaign and evaluating its impact. This title covers: the beginning of social networking in the academic context; how to implement use of social media technologies; and evaluating their use. The final section considers the future and asks: ‘What’s next?’

• Provides information on how to plan, integrate, and assess the use of social media in academic libraries
• Gives examples on the best social media technologies to implement in academic libraries
• Discusses the skills and knowledge required in the academic library to launch a successful social media campaign