Library instruction videos

There is an increase in library instruction videos.  The ones shown below from the British Library and the National Library of Australia are two excellent examples.  I like the way the libraries are promoted, and the way the information is conveyed.  It is also good to see the way collection items are shown too.

From the British Library
From the National Library of Australia
You can see more British Library videos here, and more videos from the National Library of Australia here.

Formats of reporting

While following the current news story about the hostages in a mall in Kenya, I noticed this report from CBS.  It is interesting because of the way social media is included in the reporting of the situation.  The tweets are shown as quotes.

I have not seem much of this kind of reporting from libraries about their collections, although the British Library has used used social media as part of their story telling.  You can see recent tweets on their home page, and exhibition pages often have an embedded feed of recent tweets using the exhibition hashtag.

Fight dengue

Fight dengue, a photo by ellen forsyth on Flickr.

This was a nice health promotion in Singapore. You could scan a QR code, connect on Facebook or Twitter.

Follow a shop on social media

Follow a shop on social media, a photo by ellen forsyth on Flickr.

This was covering a shop fitout. It was a great way to promote the shop that would be there, and who wants to connect to its clients via social media. I liked that the sign was really big.  They also make their hashtag visible too.  How easy is it for people to find the hashtag for your library exhibitions, are they in the exhibitions, or do people have to guess?  Do you have hashtags for exhibitions, or to encourage people to talk about your library online?

Download a shop app

Download a shop app, a photo by ellen forsyth on Flickr.

How easy is your library app to find online. Do you make it easy, or do you expect people to be really effective searchers before they can connect.

This vegetarian cafe makes it simple, as they want their clients to connect with them.

Virtual reality resurrects a defunct exhibition - tech - 27 August 2013 - New Scientist

Virtual reality resurrects a defunct exhibition - tech - 27 August 2013 - New Scientist

This is a rather brilliant idea, and a great way to preserve history of museums, galleries and archives.  Make sure you read the New Scientist blog post.

Celebrating social media - at South Sydney

South Sydney, the rugby league team, celebrate their fans who follow them on social media.  They have a club twitter account @SSFCRABBITOHS which they use like other organisations.  They also have a page on their website which celebrates how their fans are showing their support for the club and the team, on twitter.  You can look at the leader board of tweeting fans - with links to their twitter accounts, just in case you want to follow them.  They also profile some of their twitter supporters (social fan of the week) and often feature a key tweet on their home page (which many libraries and other cultural institutions also do).  I like the profiling of the twitter fans as it is a way of both celebrating and building community.

Other sports teams may also feature this kind of community celebration, so please treat this as an example.  I liked the way they are bringing the social media to anyone who uses their website.  They are celebrating this kind of support for their team, as well as much more traditional means.  It is about building and connecting to their community of fans, and celebrating them - and I think there are ideas for libraries in this.  They even have a weekly wallpaper featuring different key events and players of the previous week.  It would be lovely if people were so excited about library collections that they wanted to show this by having a different library (museum, gallery or archive) wallpaper on their screen each week.

Thanks to @cfwriter for telling me about this.

It only seems polite to end this post with - #GoRabbitohs

Bus timetables have become...different

Bus timetables, a photo by ellen forsyth on Flickr.

I had not looked at printed bus time tables for a while and was interested to see that actual bus drivers were now being featured on them. This is an interesting development as it appears to be personalising the information. I don't know how long this has been happening, but it is an interesting development.