1. Virtually Yours, Bibliotheka Houston Twopoint.O Houston Bayou Librarians Houston Public Library Creating a virtual presence using social media Patricia Bustamante, Manager, Electronic Library ServicesSaima Kadir, Manager, Emerging Technologies Houston Public Library Houston, Texas

2. Choosing a virtual persona

Many attempts to utilize social media

Difficult to establish an identity

Facebook introduces Fan Pages (yay!)

3. DO IT NOW AND APOLOGIZE LATER 4. Who are our fans? 5.

Mayor wanted neighborhood groups to use Facebook

• Our team was asked to give classes

Other city departments started FB pages

City of Houston Social Media Library

Social media & the City 6. Twitter

@houstonlibrary

PR broadcast tool

4,500 followers # 2

Valuable tool after Hurricane Ike

@askHPL

Almost ready to launch Twitter reference

7.

• Dedicated staff

• Personalize

• Customize

Things to consider 8. 9. Social media policy

Legitimize the project

Approached administration

Proposed Policies & Guidelines written to encompass existing and future social media technology

• Training element had to be included

The document is now in the process of being reviewed and hopefully approved by ELT

10. Moving Forward

Over 1,000 FB fanshope to reach 2k by 2011

InfoQuest Nationwide text reference coop pilot

Social reference using Twitter

Blogging?Weve come full circle

11. Resources www.facebook.com/houstonlibrary twitter.com/houstonlibrary? Photo Personalization www.photofunia.com www.loonapix.com/effector www.faceinhole.com www.funphotobox.com Facebook Page Customization Static FBMLApplication ( http://bit.ly/4Tfyk )This app will add a box to Fan Pages in which onecan render HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup Language) for enhanced page customization. Presenters Saima Kadir:[email_address] Paty Bustamante:[email_address]