Social media happens so fast. I mean, just over a week ago, none of us considered making a banana peel part of our morning routine. So in between the monthly “Recently in Academic Libraries” posts, I pull together regular updates on what AcadLibs are doing on social. Please enjoy these recent highlights.
Always check the calendar
Academic libraries stepped up their game this year for April Fools. Perhaps I wasn’t as attentive in the past, but I noticed more accounts engaging in what was obviously planned content for this internet high holy day. Carroll University Library pulled a blast from the past and decided to shrink all their books. Amherst College Library introduced their campus’s first silent dorm. Cornell University Library took flight with its latest mobile branch.
I honestly had to do a double take and remind myself what day it was with American University Library’snew coffee ad as well as Boston College University’s latest collection development priority (spoiler: it’s dolls).
The most popular trend by far was the inclusion of animals. Both Wash U and William & Mary offered therapydogs for checkout. Not to be outdone, LSU advertised therapy tigers. And the University of Albany began lending horses. Animals became librarians as well. Catholic University Libraries hired Catalog Mary McCatFace and the University of Idaho hired the first ever moose librarian (seen above).
But the post that shocked me the most was this one from Sacred Heart University. Nope, nope, nope.
Anytime I am struggling to come up with a piece of content, I know I can always count on beautiful photography and high-quality b-roll to carry the day. This is what makes UNC Greensboro’s “mindfulness moment” work so well, as well as Georgia Tech’s “go to the library.” But it has been the recent “not my house” trend that really gave libraries a chance to re-use some of those stellar shots. Here it is by Mizzou Libraries and Yale Libraries. Similarly, the “get me to god’s country” offers the same opportunity, as demonstrated by UC Santa Barbara Library.
🎶 Musical theatre students at the University of Georgia Libraries curated an exhibition of classic Broadway musical posters and artifacts. The selected items were then passed on to another performance-based class who will perform selections from the musicals at the exhibition’s opening reception. “The concert on March 24 will present standards from familiar titles like Brigadoon, Cabaret, Hair, and Kiss Me Kate. But it will also highlight songs from lesser-known shows such as Dear World, It’s a Bird It’s a Plane It’s Superman, Lost in the Stars, and No Strings.” I love the coordination and collaboration across multiple classes.
🏀 Not sure what library merch is most appealing to students? The University at Buffalo Libraries is hosting a March Madness-style bracket challenge to find out. They are putting 16 potential library merch items head-to-head. What a simple an effective way to see what students really want.
😌 “Sometimes the hardest part about studying is staying focused.” The University of Cincinnati Libraries has created a “Study and Focus Tools” collection of items such as fidget toys, blue light glasses, white noise machines, and more. The collection won’t be available until fall 2025, but they are showcasing the items at upcoming tabling events, which is a great way to pilot test the items before putting them into circulation.
🇮🇷 The University of Pennsylvania Libraries has received an extensive collection related to the late Iranian poet Nader Naderpour, donated by his close friend Farhad Mafie and his widow, Jaleh Bassiri Naderpour. The collection spans six decades and includes correspondence with literary figures, 400 tapes of lectures and interviews, 45 videos, over 1,600 scanned articles and notes, 1,000 images of handwritten poems, and 200 photographs.
🎤 Berkeley Library has created and released an Oral History Agreement Toolkit, “a collection of templates, guiding documents, and resources designed to help transform how institutions approach oral history agreements.” These resources can help libraries and archivists protect narrators’ rights and address privacy concerns, adhere to best practices, resolve ambiguities in usage permissions, respond to common scenarios, understand legal issues, and standardize terms.
🖨️ It’s always wonderful to see libraries increasing access to information resources in new ways. At UTA Libraries, they have added Braille and PIAF (Pictures in a Flash) printers (pictured above) to assist visually impaired students. These printers convert digital documents into tactile Braille and raised-line images, respectively. The Braille printer translates PDFs into Braille text, supporting over 100 languages, while the PIAF printer transforms visual content into touchable graphics.
Notable mentions
The Peabody Library reflection room at Vanderbilt University
The Vanderbilt Peabody Library has created a reflection room that hosts variable lighting, yoga and prayer mats, white noise machines, tabletop fountains, puzzles, coloring books, moving sand art, and a zen garden.
I love that feeling I get when I’m watching a Reel or a TikTok and I just know the folks involved had a great time making it. That’s the vibe I get from a recent University at Buffalo Libraries Instagram post. Maybe it’s just the nostalgia for the TV of my generation, but I watched this at least twice beginning to end just for the feels. If I could convince my colleagues to do this type of content, I would do it all the time.
Speaking of folks having a great time on social, Kay P Maye at Tulane Libraries went around to students asking them basic facts about the library. The results are hilarious and include (because why not?) someone dressed as a crawfish. Unless you read the title of the video, it isn’t until the very end that you get the reveal that it’s a promo for an upcoming book event. And props to leading with the crawfish to hook folks in the first two seconds.
Library reconstruction projects begin with high excitement but then immediately enter a long period of stagnation, frustration, and possibly resentment. So to keep the positive energy looking toward the eventual reopening, it’s important to keep the campus communuty engaged with the library’s progress. James Madison University Libraries did a fabulous job collaborating with their univeristy president to showcase what is essentially a poorly-lit construction zone. They also managed to work in appreciation for their donors. (I honestly think the president was learning about the project as they were filming this, so nice work JMU connecting with that major stakeholder).
As a supervisor, as much as I rely on my student assistants to help with content development, I have to regularly remind myself that they need profession development opportunities as well. Here, Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries had their photography intern tag along with the university’s main marketing team on a photoshoot. I love all the BTS footage.
Finally, I love the effect that UF Libraries is doing here by aligning faces of students in quick succession. It’s the type of template that could be used to highlight university photographs, buildings, mascots, or faculty and staff. With a title like “100 Years (and faces)” I would have expected to see a wider ranges of images, but the messaging is still the same: the university archives is the place where IHEs preserve their history.
Social media happens so fast. I mean, just over a week ago, saying that I can’t get anxiety out of my brain meant an entirely different thing. So in between the monthly “Recently in Academic Libraries” posts, I pull together regular updates on what AcadLibs are doing on social. Please enjoy these recent highlights.
The content is mysterious and important
I’m sure we’re not all watching Severance, but it feels like entire world is watching Severance (or maybe that’s just my fyp). Major props to Oklahoma State University Libraries for getting the dolly zoom elevator shot perfect. Over at University of Maryland Libraries, they put together a small set of Severance references to promote locking in at the library. I even jumped on the “outie/innie” trend at my library as a way to subtly poke fun at the things some students do in the library (and yes it’s true that someone actually left an entire bowl of spaghetti once).
KU Libraries used both video and still images to celebrate a faculty member who is an open educational resources advocate. The video is a solid interview with engaging b-roll footage, and a good example of what you can accomplish with skilled a videographer. The carousel works equally well, combining good photography with simple branded graphics. Instead of trying to put images and words together in a single slide, KU Libraries posted image, then graphic, then image, giving each its full space. I hope this is part of a series!
1. “Last week, I just got two offers for the job that I want.” The J. Willard Marriott Library posted this solidly feel-good video across their socials, encouraging students to find the good in life. It follows on the heels of a trend I’ve seen many universities doing (including my own) but I love the tight camera angle and ASMR-style audio. It takes a familiar trend and makes it more intimate.
2. The “subtle foreshadowing” meme is a great way to take advantage of the rule that you have to capture someone’s attention in the first 1-2 seconds of a social media post in order to hook them. It’s an obvious gimmick, but the self-referentiality of the format works. CSU Fullerton’s Pollak Librarypied their dean and associate dean as a thank you to donors following a Day of Giving. I really hope that was a student worker throwing the pies.
3. I am always impressed by libraries that have the time and energy to hop onto the awards season bandwagon by posting timely content. The go-to meme is, of course, the juxtaposition of a book cover with a celebrity’s red carpet outfit. So it was refreshing to see a slightly different take by Georgia Tech Library who used high quality photography and Oscar Awards categories to highlight their library spaces.
🎙️ The University of Texas Libraries have digitized and published, with transcripts, more than 160 episodes of the radio program Latino USA. “The newly published episodes consist of over 80 hours of material covering Latin American and Latina/o topics, including interviews with figures such as labor activist Dolores Huerta, singer Little Joe Hernandez, San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, and writers Claribel Alegria, Américo Paredes, and Sandra Cisneros.”
🎒 The NC State Libraries have put together family backpack kits for students who are parents of young children. Similar to the UVU post from earlier this month, I love seeing libraries support non-traditional students, especially those trying to juggle caretaking. The kits contain age-appropriate books, activities, and toys. NC State developed this in consultation with their campus’s Student Parent Association and by examining what other academic libraries do to support parents.
⚛️ Chemistry. Lasers. Medieval manuscripts. Boy, you do know the way to this librarian’s heart. Dartmouth Libraries worked with their chemistry department to identify pigments in several of their pre-1600 manuscript fragments using Raman spectroscopy. What an amazing experience for their students! (I’m sure the librarians were into it as well).
🌿 File this under “things I want to do at my library.” LeHigh University’s Fairchild-Martindale Library has selected the winner of its library design contest. I highlighted this back in May. The winning submission, Mossgrove (prototype seen above), was co-developed by two students. “Studies show that indoor plants improve one’s productivity, focus, and wellbeing. Combining this with our personal experiences in nature, it made sense to create a timeless, biophilic design,” said one of the students.
🎵 Indiana University Bloomington is preserving the history of its state’s independent music scene through its Secretly Canadian publicity records, which consists of publicity material created and collected by the label from its founding in 1996 through 2012 including Bon Iver, Danielson, War on Drugs, Dirty Projectors, and more bands that I constantly have on repeat.
🤖 “Libraries are more than spaces for study—they are engines of opportunity, places where ideas are born, and futures are shaped.” Leo Lo, library dean at the University of New Mexico, recently spoke at the Global AI Forum 2024, and three institutions in Hong Kong. His reflections on artificial intelligence and the role that libraries could play in that field’s evolution is worth considering, if anything for its exploration of the adjacent possible.
🫱🏼🫲🏽 The University of California system, most of the California State University schools, and 30 private academic and research institutions (including my own place of work) have reached a comprehensive four-year transformative open access agreement with Oxford University Press through the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC).
✊🏼 The University of Maryland Libraries is working with Project STAND’s $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to support residencies that will “solicit 16 fellows from student organizers, memory workers, artists, and community organizers to think collectively about safeguarding histories of student-led liberation while imagining and developing primary resources to support the ongoing advocacy and education that make these critical histories accessible.”
Notable mentions
Hyakumantō darani, an eighth-century wooden pagoda and paper strip imprinted with Muku jōkō-kyō: jishin’in darani, a Buddhist mantra (The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, The University of Chicago Library)
The University of Chicago Libraries recently acquired an 8th century Buddhist artifact called a hyakumantō darani (pictured above).
Quite a few libraries hostedDouglassDaytranscribe-a-thons, including Marquette University, William & Mary, and Fairfield University.
Speaking of William & Mary’s Swem Library, they also showcased their extensive collection of love letters by hosting a “Love in the Archives Open House.”
UNC Wilmington is hosting a FlashLit competition. The theme for 2025 is artificial intelligence. Students are challenged to write pieces of 500 words or less.
Georgia State University Library hosted a panel, pop-up exhibit, documentary viewing, and archival donation ceremony on the legacy of Atlanta hip-hop.
I am a glutton for well-produced video content. The KU Libraries created a promo video highlighting their participation in Douglass Day, during which students, faculty and staff joined a nation-wide effort to transcribe historical documents from the Library of Congress in honor of Frederick Douglass’ birthday. I love the mix of faculty and student voices, the b-roll footage, and the elegant lower-thirds. Very well done.
Speaking of simple, but elegant, I also love this collection highlight from UC Davis Library of their Food and Wine collections. Curator Audrey Russek gives a brief overview of the Beaulieu Vineyard Records. If I ever leave my current job, I hope it would be to work on a collection like this.
Not only is William & Mary Libraries’Diversify It reading challenge a brilliant idea (Pizza Hut’s Book It anyone?), but this promo video is equally compelling. I love the challenge from a student spokesperson to prove the haters wrong! The thumbs up from the circulation staffer is the icing on the cake.
I don’t know if this is an original idea, but the Fondren Library Instagram Reel about bad ideas for bookmarks had me clutching my librarian pearls the entire time. The camera person not being able to control their laugh at the end was ::chef’s kiss::
Finally, long-form video can be difficult to pull off but a recent information literacy video from UF Libraries had me watching the entire time. April Hines, journalism and mass communications librarian, has a presence that is equally engaging, inspiring, and affirming. It’s clear she’s used to regularly connecting with students in the classroom.
Social media happens so fast. I mean, less than a week ago the Duolingo owl was still alive. So in between the monthly “Recently in Academic Libraries” posts, I’m hoping to pull together regular updates on what AcadLibs are doing on social. I already have a post brewing about some of my favorite go-to libraries for discovering creative social media work. In the meantime, please enjoy these recent highlights of higher ed libraries on social!
Main character energy
One of the best ways to build a community of followers and encourage them to continually re-engage with your content is to establish familiar characters who over time become instantly recognizable and, if you play your cards right, will nurture their own lore.
For example, I am incredibly invested in the relationship between the team of creators at UCSB Libraries. Their playful mix of behind the scenes content, their self-referential nods, and the way they highlight their collaboration stops me from scrolling past every time a new post hits my FYP.
Of course, you don’t need to use actors if that’s not an option for you. I am just as invested in what the Auburn University Libraries’toy tiger (his name is Ralph) is up to. Currently, he’s at the beach.
In both #HESM (higher ed social media) and wider SMM (social media manager) professional communities, there are regularly discussions about whether to use memes, how often, and for what purposes. Even before the ascendence of short-form video, academic libraries were always shy about using memes, or using them too frequently, but following the rise of TikTok and Reels, I’ve noticed a substantial increase in the AcadLibs trying to capitalize on trending content.
Here are two safe, easy, and evergreen memes that any library could adapt: Carroll University Library using the “Can Ashley change a tire” video meme and the Bass Library at Yale using the “how are you feeling today” meme with still images of architectural features in their building.
Of course, some memes are short-lived or age quickly. I would bet the “college acceptance letter” meme will eventually fall into that category (we can only handle so much emotional tension… plus I think the trending audio for this meme is a tad bit too long). But until then, I did enjoy how Willamette University Library used it to highlight their interlibrary loan services.
At the most recent Library Marketing and Communications Conference in November 2024, Krystal Ruiz and Keith Kesler from Los Angeles Public Library spoke about the importance of highlighting local history in short form video. For libraries especially, it’s the type of content that connects directly with their niche audience. Academic libraries can benefit from this advice: obviously, with university archives materials, but local city/state materials as well. Such as in this Ball State video on local buildings in Indiana.
Finally, I want to spotlight a recent TikTok from one of my favorite accounts, UVU Library. It’s a simple green screen-style post, but it recognizes an often-overlooked demographic in academic libraries: students who are parents of young children. The post did not perform as well as their other posts (at least not at first: it’s only a day old at the time of this writing), but that’s not important. What matters is that this type of content helps specific members of our community feel seen. Sometimes, it’s about more than shares, sends, and watch-time. It’s about how our content makes our users feel.
🎭📈🗿 DePaul University Library received a state grant of $149,278 to develop OER materials for select undergraduate courses. Entitled “Open Educational Resources Design and Development Across Disciplines at DePaul University,” the grant will help create three faculty-led publications (both original and remixes) in theatre, business, and history. If successful, the project has the potential to save approximately 2,715 students a total of $234,480 over three years.
🎶📖🎤 “Do you wanna touch it? You can touch it.” Students at the University of Dayton had the opportunity to learn and sing from 15th- and 18th- century antiphon books. For their final project, the students planned a public vespers service and faculty from the music department sang from an arrangement of the antiphons.
🏀🗨📸 Basketball players from Arizona State University and the Valley Suns came together to learn about Black history in Arizona. In addition to exploring the Black Collections, part of ASU’s Community-Driven Archives Initiative, the athletes learned about Martin Luther King Jr.’s visit to ASU’s Tempe campus in 1964, including a speech by King that wasn’t made public until 2014.
📚💰📚 This was not a model I was familiar with. “All NC State undergraduate students have been automatically enrolled in the new Course Ready textbook billing program. […] The program charges students a flat fee each semester to provide access to digital-only versions of their required course materials within Moodle.” The NC State University Libraries created a guide to help students navigate the program and determine if it’s right for them. Related: They also support an alt-textbook program that awards grants to faculty to adopt, adapt, or create free or low-cost alternatives to expensive textbooks.
📜🧹👑 The J. Willard Marriott Library holds 770 fragments of Arabic language papyri, dating from the 8th through the 10th centuries CE, and is currently in the process of cleaning, repairing, and re-glazing the papyri. Personal note: even though I live in Los Angeles, I had not considered the need to earthquake-proof flat materials!
🔥💖🏙 The fires in Los Angeles have been devastating. Thousands of people have lost their homes and businesses. Even though much of L.A. was physically unscathed, the disruption and impact to our community stretches far beyond the areas hit most directly. The USC Libraries created a wildfire assistance resources guide for student and faculty affected by the fires.
🍎🏗📘 “Like coring an apple.” I’ve seen more than one library this past year remove its “old stacks” (you know, the ones with short ceilings) in favor of a more open and accessible layout. That’s what is currently happening at Duke Univeristy’s Lilly Library. It’s quite amazing to see these demolition photographs of what the stacks look like with their flooring removed.
✌🏾✌🏿✌🏽 The University of Maryland Libraries has established a new program, Truth, Reconciliation, and Understanding in the University Archives, in order to lift up marginalized narratives and bring more light more complex stories of the university’s history. “TRU-UA will address important issues regarding race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, and difference in abilities in the University’s history.” This program is funded in part by a $9 million (!!!) gift made to the University Archives.
🗣📙🦇 Last year, Yale Library created a new residency program to support DEIA and student success efforts and to honor the legacy of the program’s namesake, Kenya S. Flash. The inaugural resident, Nick Wantsala, has partnered with the New Haven Free Public Library to promote early literacy and a local history project.
🎓🏫📄 Stanford University Libraries employs 5-7 part-time student assistants each year to help process collections in their University Archives. Students get to choose from among several collections which they want to process. “They’re having formative experiences and making intellectual connections without the pressure of writing papers and solving problem sets,” says Assistant University Archivist Claudia Willett.
Notable mentions
Clarence Darrow addressing the jury (Sue K. Hicks Papers, Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives, University of Tennessee Libraries)
The University of Tennessee Knoxville Libraries has created an exhibition as part of a year-long commemoration of the anniversary of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial (pictured above)
To raise awareness of their collections, the University of Cincinnati hosts a semi-regular poetry series and publishes the featured works. Related: Purdue University is hosting a poetry workshop + poetry slam. Seattle U.’s Lemieux Library also hosted a poetry event.
Syracuse University Libraries is offering a start-up fund to help students “move an idea from concept to commercialization.”
The George C. Gordon Library at Worcester Polytechnic is hosting an author series exploring innovations and challenges of authors writing across multiple genres.
The Milner Library at Illinois State University did a deep dive into “America (My Country ‘Tis of Thee)” as represented in textbooks and artists’ books.
Baylor University Libraries were awarded a $2.48 million grant to support a major expansion of their Black gospel archive.
The library at Chapman University has created a viritual exhibition in Scalar exploring its history.
The J. Willard Marriott Library posts weekly meme round-ups. Whoever is running that account has their fingers directly on the pulse of the internet. In fact, all of their content is top-notch. Here is a simply, but beautifully-designed classic book recommendation. And this instructional video on how to scan a book chapter is 😘.
This “welcome back” video from Virginia Tech Libraries gives all the good vibes. No voice over, just good beats and high-quality b-roll.
The always creative UVU Library put together a quick-and-dirty Spotify “playlist” for their students. Honestly, my only complaint is that they didn’t share a link! And I want to hear a mash-up of all the title lines from the songs, à la DJ Earworm. Related: Lauren Tolman from UVU Library talks about how to capture students’ attention by “stopping the scroll” in the latest issue of Public Services Quarterly.
Finally, this was a trend that I wish I had time to put together, but feel I’ve missed the boat. The University of Washington Libraries created a “ins and outs” for the new year video. “You’re in college. Figure it out.” 😂
My colleague Ray Andrade and I recently published an article on our outreach successes (and some failures) with first-year college students. We utilize a home-grown mix of programming, communications, and 1:1 connections to foster student engagement.
Starting with the knowledge that using the library within their first semester at college is correlated with academic success, the outreach team and the Hannon Library have employed a variety of tactics to get students in the door. By creating engaging orientation videos, promoting the library at in-person campus fairs, fostering word of mouth by working directly with niche communities, leveraging existing communication channels and email marketing, and hosting an open house early in the semester, we have cultivated an ecosystem in which the library’s brand can take root and thrive.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how academic libraries structure their support for external communications. By “external” I mostly mean on campus, though sometimes this can include communications beyond campus, especially in the case of large state universities, R1 schools, and those with fundraising needs.
This isn’t a topic I have explored in the published literature yet, but I have been poking around library websites to see what info I can glean from staff directories and organizational charts. The various configurations for managing comms I have found generally fall into four types (I call them “tiers” below), though there appears to be little consistency beyond these broad categories. If a research study on this does not already exist, I would find it worthwhile to investigate it further.
In my experience, there are three factors that make academic library communications effective: consistency, strategy, and quality. That is:
creating consistent messaging, branding, and tone;
developing strategic objectives and determining metrics of success; and
maintaining a high level of quality content production and execution.
Of the four models for communications outlined below, only libraries in tiers 1 and 2 can guarantee high levels of all three factors. This is not to say that libraries within tiers 3-4 cannot be successful, but only that it is far more difficult.
Tier 1: The comms team
I suspect this mostly exists in R1 institutions or large campuses with multiple libraries. This is when the library employs an entire team of professionals to manage its communications needs. This might include a full time social media manager, graphic designer, writer, project manager, event manager, development officer, and/or videographer. Assuming that everyone on the team has the requisite skills and experience, this is the most desirable option and the one that securely enables consist, strategic, and high quality communications.
Tier 2: The comms director
Most likely to be found at mid-size university libraries. This is when you have a single full-time person entirely dedicated to communications. Their work might also involve planning and hosting events, and may vary considerably depending on (1) whether they are a librarian or staff and (2) whether they are housed within the reference department or administration. Assuming this person has the requisite skills and experience, this is also a desirable option, though without the balance and support of a team, there is the risk that either consistency, strategy, or quality could fail over time (also, burnout is a significant threat). Nonetheless, it’s a viable option.
Tier 3: The comms hat
Also may be found at mid-size universities, but more likely to be found in smaller colleges. This is when you have a full-time staffer who has been given the extra hat of communications. This might be a solo reference and instruction librarian, a collections librarian, or even a department head but it’s not their primary role. It’s almost a certainty that one of the three success factors will, out of necessity, fall by the wayside.
Tier 4: The comms committee
This is the least desirable arrangement: communications by committee. While I don’t doubt there are some effective uses of this model out there, I would bet most are ineffective relative to the time and effort involved. This is when no one is in charge of outreach and it just happens depending on the variable bandwidth of the members of the group. Even with the best of intentions and structure, you cannot guarantee a consistent tone or level of quality.
Finding the right fit
Academic library outreach and communications is a different beast than what one may experience in other types of libraries. For one, an academic library’s primary audience is a limited and captive one: students and faculty. Moreover, the distance, both physical and conceptual, that messaging needs to travel is relatively short. It’s in the secondary and tertiary audiences that variety comes into play: are donors a key demo? Campus senior leadership? State officials? How important is reaching the off-campus community?
I don’t know what might be a best practice when it comes to structuring an outreach department, but I would venture that most libraries evolve from Tier 4 to Tier 1 over time, though most will never reach beyond Tier 2 due to staffing constraints. What I do know is that working in team environment has a number of benefits, including exponentially increased bandwidth, a mutually reinforced creativity engine, and a burnout buffer. However, it is essential that all members bring the requisite level of skill and experience to the table to make this work efficiently.
Coda: The line between outreach and communications is a fuzzy one. The terms are frequently used interchangeably (guilty) but the latter has a much deeper and longer history of best practices, theory, and scholarship, mostly outside LIS. I think many libraries slap the term “outreach” on job descriptions and titles without giving much thought to the practical skills and knowledge necessary to make that work. That might be a topic for another time.
🛳️🇵🇦📸 The Northwestern University Transportation Library has digitized a collection of photographs from the construction of the Panama Canal. “The photos show both construction sites of the canal and more leisurely photos of towns and people in Panama at the time […]. Parades, family portraits, and days on the beach are all shown in the photos.” It’s a relatively small collection (153 photographs and 30 postcards), but the photographs are fascinating!
🔍🤖✨ The University of Arkansas Libraries are testing a new natural-language search tool, powered by generative artificial intelligence, as part of its discovery interface. More importantly, they provide a brief overview of how it works for students. I love that the instructions include the step “look for the sparkles.”
🆓👩🏫📚 The University of Virginia Libraries has an interview with two of the faculty involved in its Open Educational Resources Learning Community, which it co-sponsors with the university’s Center for Teaching Excellence. Through the interview, they talk about the library’s role in supporting OER, student support, and offer their advice to other faculty interesting in doing similar work.
🦋🪻🐝 The Woodruff Library at Emory University recently took a patch of grass and converted it to a pollinator garden. I love to see how academic libraries take responsibility for their spaces in ways that reach beyond simple building maintenance.
🎙️👨🎓🐺 A fairly recent alumni from NC State University Libraries is creating an endowment to help fund an oral history program called “Wolf Tales,” designed to help the library capture the stories of NC State alumni though video narratives and interviews.
On social
This TikTok from the River Campus Libraries at the University of Rochester [TikTok] does not have nearly enough likes. I don’t know whether this pinch-zoom idea is original (though it feels meme-ish, I haven’t seen it used elsewhere), but it’s brilliantly fun and an engaging way to show off large spaces.
I have been wanting to do a “view from a book” style video for ages now. UNC Libraries [Instagram] did a fun version. The soundtrack choice is perfect. Related: Also from UNC Libraries [Facebook], they asked their followers to help them name their book trucks. The results [Instagram] did not disappoint.
The University of Kansas Libraries [Instagram] hosted a plant swap that included crafting and items from special collections. The resulting video makes good use of b-roll footage. Reminds me that I need to capture more video at our events!
I don’t know if this counts are sponsored content or a collaboration or what, but the University of Missouri Libraries [Instagram] made a video highlighting a local ice cream shop and the joys of reading. The two best parts of summer!
Illinois State University Library explores the role of women in World War I through the lens of its digital collections.
Today I learned that John Ruskin was really into rocks. The University of Delaware Library explores the provenance of a piece of quartz in its collection.
Georgia State University is seeking proposals for a piece of original artwork to be installed in one of it’s spaces (I love the idea of libraries paying artists for their works)
How do you sum up three decades of work at an academic library? Stephen Cunetto started his job at Mississippi State University Libraries as a student and ended it as associate dean.
Renovations
Summer time for most colleges is the season of projects that can’t be easily accomplished during the school year. Not surprisingly, it’s often the best time to renovate or make substantial progress on long-term construction projects. A number of colleges are in the midst of renovations and upgrades. Here is just a sampling, in no particular order:
I jokingly referred to “Rule #2 of the outreach team” in a meeting last week to which someone aptly responded, “So what are the other rules?” That’s a good question. We like to stay flexible on my team (it’s necessary when most of your work is collaboration-based), so there are rarely hard and fast rules. But here are a few maxims we live by.
Rule 1: Make something people want
Rule 2: Save everything to Box
Rule 3: Invite more people to the table
Rule 4: Dirty hands make it right
Rule 5: “Yes and”
Of course, rules are meant to be broken so here are the notable exceptions:
Rule 5 (with caveat): Yes and… but we can’t say yes to everything.
Rule 4 (with caveat): Dirty hands make it right… but don’t be a hero.
Rule 3 (with caveat): Invite more people to the table… but always be clear who will make the call.
Rule 2 (with caveat): Save everything to Box… [actually, there’s no exception to this rule]
Rule 1 (with caveat): Make something people want… but sometimes you have to make them want to want it first.
