Social Media at RCSI LibraryColm O’Connor, RCSI Library

RCSI Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Coláiste Ríoga na Máinleá in Éirinn

• Introduction to Social Media• RCSI Library on YouTube

• How we create videos for YouTube• RCSI Library on Facebook

• RCSI Library blog • RCSI Heritage blog

• Websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social

networking. 

• Traditional media was a one way street, social media is two way; users have ability to generate their

own content and communicate their thoughts and ideas.

 • Examples are Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter,

LinkedIn etc.

 • Follow the students; Social Media is how many find information. We go

to students; they don’t have to come to us. 

• Two way communication with students; unlike a website social media allows feedback through comments, ‘likes’ etc. Useful in building good

relationships with users. 

• A tool to promote services and highlight resources.

• A video sharing website; allows anyone to upload and view videos

• Users can comment on and ‘like’ videos. You can also ‘subscribe’ to users that are of interest to you.

•  Second most popular social media platform in Ireland with 640,000 users (GlobalWebIndex, 2013)

www.youtube.com/rcsilibrary

• Showing instructional videos on how to use the catalogue and our electronic resources

• Currently we have 8 videos

• From the library website www.rcsi.ie/library

• Using the search box at www.youtube.com

• By going directly to www.youtube.com/rcsilibrary

• Staff members consult

• Draw up a ‘script’ - Usually several drafts!

• Needs to be concise but include all necessary information – need to strike a balance

• Ensure language used isn’t too technical

• First take a recordings of the screen, e.g. Accessing CINAHL, Accessing library website

•Record piece by piece, rather than one big chunk

• At the end of this process, you will have a number of separate videos in Camtasia

•Edit the videos; add text, zoom effects, highlighting, arrows etc. (very time consuming!)

•More editing, tidy up the videos so transitions between different scenes are seamless, fix the timing (how long you want to display

text for etc.), ensure text is legible

• Create slides in PowerPoint

• Record each PowerPoint slide as a video

•Edit these videos (timing etc)

•You will now have two sets of videos ; the PowerPoint videos and the ones you created earlier (accessing website, accessing

CINAHL etc.)

• Our Cinahl video is made up of 27 separate videos.

• In Camtasia , put these videos together in the desired order.

•Add music (Camtasia has a small number of tracks you can use copyright free)

• Voice or text?• We decided on text

• Eliminates the problem of accents• Easier to follow for viewers (pause and read)

• Easier to create and edit • Looks more professional

• Videos should be short : ideally 2-4 minutes

Websites change!

This means our videos must too

• An online social networking service

• People or businesses create personal profiles with information about themselves and connect to other profiles by ‘friending’ or

‘liking’ them

• Each time one of your connections posts something new, you will be notified on your profile

• Most popular social media platform in Ireland, with 1.2 million users (GlobalWebIndex, 2013)

• Keeping students up to date with Library announcements, opening hours, new resources etc.

• Allows us to communicate more informally than we can on our website, blog etc.

• Gives us an opportunity to show content that we couldn’t display elsewhere; old pictures of the library etc.

• 2-3 posts per week

•751 ‘Likes’ or followers.

•Mostly undergraduate students

• Short for ‘Web log’, a blog is basically an online journal ; generally accessible to the public.

• At RCSI Library we have two blogs; the Library blog and the Heritage Collections blog.

http://rcsilibrary.blogspot.ie/

• Keeping students and other library users up to date with Library announcements, opening hours,

new resources etc.

• Post more ‘serious’ or academic items on the blog

http://rcsiheritage.blogspot.ie/

• Raising awareness of the research value of the collections in the Heritage Collections

• Making announcements about opening hours, new material available online etc

• It has the potential to reach a wider and more diverse user base

www.rcsi.ie/library