HLF conference 2012: Part 3 Social media

 Here's the final part of my write up of the HLF conference on 20th November 2012.

3) Social media in libraries 
The main speaker in this section was Alison Cullingford (Special Collections Librarian at Bradford University), who I suspect needs no introduction to any special collections librarian who's dabbled in social media already! The case study was provided by Jill Whitelock (Head of Special Collections, Cambridge University Library).

Some conference attendees were already using social media in their libraries, others were not, and Alison emphasised the importance of using it at the right level for both you and your institution. It is now ubiquitous - all good websites now include things like comment boxes and links to share pages on Twitter, Facebook etc.

• Social media is particularly good for small libraries, as it allows them to punch well above their weight.
• Much of it is intuitive and easy to learn, and there is a lot of help available out there.
• Use responsibly and with common sense. Your institution might perceive there is a risk from social media so be prepared to put together a case.
• You can only use pictures to which you have the rights, so this might limit what you can post online.
• Blogging and other social media are an excellent CPD opportunity for staff.

Where to start?
Blogging is the most comfortable place to start from, as you can use the story of your special collections and go beyond what you can do on a corporate website. Both Alison and Jill are using Wordpress. Put anything ongoing and dynamic on the blog and remember it has a long shelflife so people searching even years later on will still be able to find it.

• Moderate comments to weed out any spam. 
• Remember that the blog will not look after itself, so act like an editor and find and commission content. 
• Have some posts queued so you're never without one handy. 
• Join in with other blogs to do themed posts and make your content go further by using other social media. 
• Ask to be featured on your library's homepage to increase the number of hits. 
• Always ask someone else to read through your posts before they go live.

The 100 objects style format has worked well at various places (100 objects Bradford, 52 weeks of fantastic bindings, 52 weeks of inspiring illustrations) and ends up working like a FAQ about the collections. The  Cambridge Special Collections Blog has a mixture of post styles, some time-specific to mark anniversaries or publicise events. There are also separate project blogs, such as the Incunabula cataloguing project, and the Tower Project. Guest posts are used to demonstrate relevance and that collections are being used (you can see a guest post I wrote for the Cambridge Incunabula Project blog here).

Flickr works well for special collections images, and avoids the need to invest in expensive image management software (Special Collections Bradford Flickr photostream). Some institutions have used students to film special collections work as part of their projects (Tyne & Wear archives, LSE).

Twitter can be controversial as it's easy to say things you shouldn't, but it's a brilliant way of getting conversations started, being interactive and getting feedback quickly. During the day there are a lot of professionals using it, and a good international angle emerges when people in other time zones get to work too. I liked Alison's tip of never using Twitter if you're in a bad mood!

Golden rule: think about what you're doing and why you're doing it

Sources to find out more:
CPD23 provides a good overview of getting started with social media.
Ned Potter (the Wikiman) has guidelines for using social media on his blog.

HLF conference 2012: Part 2 Exhibitions

Continuing my write up of the 2012 Historic Libraries Forum conference: Making the most of your special collections.


2) Exhibitions
The main speaker on exhibitions was Tanya Kirk (Lead Curator of Printed Literary Sources at the British Library), who had recently curated the summer exhibition, Writing Britain: literary wonderlands and wastelands. Case studies were provided by Katie Sambrook (Special Collections Librarian at King's College London) and Emily Dourish (Exhibitions Officer at Cambridge University Library).

Tanya outlined the exhibitions process at the British Library. It is run as a project, with each exhibition usually taking 2-3 years of planning and implementation. I have added comments made by Katie and Emily in their case studies to the outline below.

• Proposal - sell exhibition ideas to colleagues and your marketing department/wider institution. Why do you think your institution is the right place for this exhibition? Does it have a broad or narrow focus, and is this likely to appeal to enough people? This will also depend on whether you are trying to generate revenue, or just raise awareness of your library/institution and promote your collections. An exhibition is an immense amount of work, even if you only have a few display cases, so are you going to be a single curator (and if so, what happens about the rest of your work whilst this is going on?) or curate jointly with someone else? Emily talked about how academics at Cambridge were keen to be involved with an exhibition because it could count as evidence for their impact rating in REF.
• Marketing - does it link with your institution's "brand"? There was a difference here between case studies. Some had marketing departments that liked to link the exhibition to modern times, and avoid having a "dusty image", other institutions were keen to emphasise the historical aspects of what they were displaying.
• Audience test and find out what people would expect to see if they came to your exhibition. Similarly. talk to colleagues to ensure you are remaining on track topic-wise. Know your audience - the BL aims exhibition labels at a reading age of GCSE grade C to make it accessible. Knowing your audience also means you know whether you can use technical terms or not.
• Build a list of collection items considered for exhibition, otherwise you'll forget them. Record information about the copy you want, which opening you want and the book's condition on a spreadsheet, and take photos to remind yourself what the item looks like. Keep in mind the overall look and aim for variety in each display case. You can also use colour pictures to mock up the display case.
• Check whether items are suitable for display, bearing in mind the limitations of your display space, for example, is the environment suitable and is the book happy to open far enough for display purposes?
• Arrange exhibition loans, if necessary. Most institutions want to receive loan requests at least six months before the exhibition. Bear in mind that loans can be expensive.
• When writing labels be rigorous about fact checking and always have someone available to proofread and edit. Avoid writing consecutive labels as people don't read everything and may miss some out. Start with a hook at the beginning of the label to draw people in and use active language and metaphor. Encourage people to look at the object, not just read the label. Always test your labels with non-expert.
• Publicity - encourage people to blog about your exhibition to raise awareness. Make sure your front of house staff know about the exhibition so they can "sell" it too.
• Katie and Emily had different policies about online exhibitions. At King's they publish the online exhibition only after the physical display has been taken down, to encourage people to go and see it whilst it's there. Whereas at Cambridge the online exhibition is published at the same time.

I thought there were some great ideas in this part of the conference, and definitely some I'll be able to use in the future. I also found it helpful to have an overview of the whole exhibition process at the British Library. Obviously, that's a lot bigger than anywhere I've worked, but the same principles apply.

HLF conference 2012: Part 1 Filming

Earlier this week I was at the Historic Libraries Forum conference, held at the Bishopsgate Institute in London. I thought it was an excellent conference, although I may be a little biased! ;-) Well, I certainly took away a lot of useful ideas, and I think, from the feedback we received, that others did too.

The day was structured with three longer talks in the morning, and five case studies in the afternoon, but I'm going to group them into themes for the write up. I've split this into three posts as there was a lot to take in.

1) Filming in libraries
The main speaker was Harvey Edgington, the National Trust's Broadcast and Media Manager, who gave us an overview of how the NT works with film companies who want to film on location at any of the properties. This covered an immense scope, from Pride and Prejudice (yes, both the Colin Firth one and the Keira Knightley one) to documentaries and fashion shows.Whilst I doubt most libraries can replicate the scale (5 or 6 new enquiries a day from film crews, and 3 crews filming every day), there was a lot of pertinent information about actually dealing with film crews.

Case studies were provided by Suzanne Paul (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) and Naomi Percival (Lambeth Palace Library).

Main points about filming:

• Filming can generate money (both for your library and the local area) and also raise awareness of your library. Remember that TV advertising costs a fortune so publicity like this can be fantastic.
• Risks involved include the film being a flop and possibly having to close to users, causing alienation. Harvey mentioned that films don't necessarily show a property as it actually is, thereby causing disappointment amongst visitors - I still remember my teenage disappointment at arriving at Lyme Park to discover there wasn't a great sweeping long drive leading by the lake where THAT scene with Colin Firth was filmed. Suzanne recommended checking that the filming will fit with the brand and direction of both your library and the wider institution.
• Don't underestimate the time involved. Film crews always run over and can also be very last minute about getting in touch.
• Have a contract setting out very clearly what your charges are (at the discussion afterwards people mentioned amounts such as £250 per hour, or £1000 per day, with extra charges for filming outside normal working hours). It should also state clearly whether items are allowed to be moved or handled, use of lights and floor protection and that the film crew will be supervised at all times by a member of library staff. Don't believe the film crew when they plead poverty, just be clear about what your charges are (some places asked for a 50% deposit before filming could be agreed, most places demanded payment up front before filming could commence).
• Encourage the crew to do a recce before filming, and to specify in advance what books they would like to film. Ensure those books are robust enough to withstand filming, and take precautions if something is requested a lot.
• Check the film crew understands the contract - if they want "establishing shots" outside, do you have the right to grant this, or do you need to involve someone else in your institution?
• Establish practicalities in advance, for example, if parking is limited nearby or if the access is via a spiral staircase.
• Be prepared to be a talking head - if you don't want to be on camera, find someone in advance who is prepared to do it!
• Take photos of the film crew at work, which you can then use to publicise your library.
• Take care with copyright. Film crews tend not to understand this so make sure that it is clear in the contract that getting copyright clearance is their responsibility. Also watch out for potential copyright implications if they want to take close ups of books, objects, portraits etc. 
• Make sure your library/institution is mentioned in the credits.
• After broadcast, be prepared for people getting in touch demanding to know why white gloves aren't being worn. The British Library has some information about this to which people can be referred!
• Review the filming afterwards to inform your future decisions. Was it worth doing?

This all backed up my own experiences of working with film crews. It isn't glamorous, but it can be worth it to get your library publicised. And, OK, I did get to meet Joanna Lumley once! I have also found lis-rarebooks and Twitter very useful for finding other librarians willing to share their filming policies (and horror stories).

Voices for the library

On behalf of the Historic Libraries Forum, I was asked to write a blog post for Voices for the Library to help public libraries with rare or historic book collections find support and advice. You can read the post here: Libraries in danger: a different angle.

This was a nice example of networking - I met Gary Green, from Voices for the Library, at the CIG12 conference, where he spoke and I introduced myself to him afterwards, mainly at that point because he works for Surrey libraries, the public library service I use myself. It was when the sale of books from Wigan public library became public that we came up with the idea of a blog post.