Supporting researchers in their use of social media

Lucy Keating. Arts, Humanities and Education liaison librarianNewcastle University Library

Outline…

ContextTraining and

supportEmerging

issuesConundrums

Social media

background

Contact with

researchersCASAP

RIN and other

reports

Context: 2010

Online guide: principles

Illustrated with real subject

examples

Portable bite-

sized chunks

No log-in or

other

barriers

Attractive

Focus on all

aspects of

research process

Flickr the Commons: Cornell Uni Library, no known copyright restrictions

Objective, not

evangelical

Practical, not

theoretical

Encouragement of

dabbling

libguides.ncl.ac.uk/

socialmedia

Face-to-face training and

supportPGR

development programmes

Staff development

workshop

Customised workshops

One-to-one consultancies

Flickr: (CC-BY-2.0) http://www.flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss/101793493

Research lifecycle

Have ideas

Find information and keep up to

date

Collaborate

Conduct research

Organise and manage

Disseminate

Curation

Time-

consuming

Quality and

authority

For social life

onlyPlagiarism

and copyright

Lack of clarity

about benefitsToo much

choice

Ethical issues

(harvesting comments,

participant

recruitment)

Few career

incentives

Metrics and

impact

Volatility

Researchers’ concerns Distortion

How much, how

often?

Which platform

should I use?

Interactive

Cheap...free!

Fast

FlexibleAltmetrics and

impact

Collaboration and

engagement

Flickr the Commons: State Library of NSW

Event amplification

Useful at all

stages in

research

process

But worth dipping your toe in the water?…

Fun!

Supplement, not

replacement

Promotes

‘traditional’

research outputs

Very much an introduction, but that was

what I needed

Would like more guidance on what to

tweet: hard when you’re representing

the views of the University

Would work better if training was

delivered to each Faculty/Research

institute

Needed help with some specific

technical issues

I’ll now use some of these

resources in future public engagement

I’ll take the 30 day impact challenge

Learned about a lot of new tools and

resources

Useful to have resources to

work with afterwards

This workshop

would benefit all staff

Social media proved invaluable to my research process

Useful to find out about different platforms

which can help with my academic profile

Significant find was a list of

media scholars on Twitter

Implications for researchersNew skills

• Data mining and management, curation, creation

• Less depth, more breadth?

New techniques and genres

• Interdisciplinarity

• Memory studies, social network analysis…

Opportunities

• New discoveries and interpretations of old sources

• Public engagement

• Career development

Flickr Commons: US National Archives

In a nutshell: advice for

researchersBe led by your need, not the

tool

Configure settings carefully

Be prepared to experiment

Flickr Commons: US National Archives; Library of Congress; George Eastman House

Conundrums for the future

Too big?Why the Library?

How to train?

Pace of change

With

whom can

we work?

Flickr Commons: Library of Congress; National Library of Norway; NASA; National Library of New Zealand; National Archief