LS589 – Week 3 blog post: Buffer and LibraryThing

This week I would like to share a resource that I recently discovered and use regularly: Better Library Leaders by Dr. Sarah Clark where she offers a free leadership course, Mastering Difficult Conversations, via a five-part podcast. I joined the Better Library Leaders Facebook group a couple of months ago and I check in a few times each week to see what’s new. 

Through Dr. Clark’s website, podcast and social media group, I learned about Buffer, a free social media scheduling app that I started experimenting with in my public library. Buffer shares your content at the best possible times throughout the day so that your followers see your updates more often. It’s easy to customize one post across several accounts.  

The reason I say “experimenting” is because the library’s development director manages the Facebook accounts for the six county libraries through HootSuite, but I manage the Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter accounts. (We’re not sure what to do about the library’s long-abandoned Pinterest account, but that’s probably another post about why a library/organization doesn’t have to jump on every new social media platform – just the ones it can use to best connect with its community.)

Since my role in a public library focuses a lot on marketing, promotions and social media, I downloaded LibraryThing, an online service to help people catalog their books easily. Use the LibraryThing iOS App to scan books to your library from the palm of your hand. LibraryThing is also a great social networking space, often described as "Facebook for books." Sign up to win free books through our Early Reviewers and Member Giveaways programs. Or, find the best book recommendations for your next reads, based on the collective intelligence of the other libraries.

This week’s recordings featured YouTube videos by Phil Bradley that were created in conjunction with his book, “Social Media for Creative Libraries.” He also maintains a personal blog here that is focused on training, social media and search engine tools. What I enjoyed most about the ninth video, “Social Media Disasters … and Their Consequences,” was how some companies handled – or didn’t – social media blunders and mistakes. That got me researching even more social media disasters and I spent the rest of my afternoon laughing.

Bradley (and others) emphasize that organizations should have a social media policy and I guess I’m fortunate at my library that my co-worker and I haven’t had any major blunders yet so we haven’t seen the need for a policy. *Fingers crossed* we don’t make the bloopers lists!

Our readings, however, focused on gamification in libraries and as a learning tool. I was very excited to learn more about gamification and how libraries are using gamification to stay connected to the learning community through collaboration, leadership and technology. Roy Tennant wrote about Gamifying Your Library and games such as Librarygame and Crossed Paths are ways to engage library users. When I got to work this week, I learned that my library has been awarded badges through Credly for participating and meeting goals in the Pennsylvania Library Association’s PA Forward initiative – and I realized that libraries (and other groups) are successfully using gamification all around me!

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how “addicted” to gamification I am – even in my blog bio I note that I love FitBit challenges with my friends and coworkers. Gotta win those badges!

Now that football season has started, my husband will be obsessed with his Fantasy Football app and DraftKings rankings. Gamification is all around us and appeals to all ages and genders. What are your favorite gamification apps or websites?