Library Social Networking Policies

Having a social media policy is important for any business, including libraries. Ellysa Kroski explains in her 2009 article that “a social media policy can help establish clear guidelines for staff members who are posting on behalf of the organization as well as employees with personal social media accounts.” It's important that employee's are aware of what they post not only on company affiliated sites, but on their own personal pages as well. Think about Clint McCance the Arkansas school board member who recently let loose a slew of homophobic comments on his Facebook page. Within hours of his post the news media and public were in an uproar calling for his resignation. If a school board member from a rural town in Arkansas can cause a huge national debacle, imagine what would happen to a CEO of a major corporation. The whole business could fail costing many people their jobs and livelihoods... all because of an ill thought out comment on a social networking site.

So what should libraries be doing to prevent social networking disasters? What kind of policies should they be creating for their own and employee's sites? The first thing to realize is that you're not going to be able to (nor should you) totally control what your employees put on the Web. Instead encourage all your employees to post a disclaimer on their blogs or social networking pages explaining that their views are their own and do not represent the company in any way. You may also suggest that things like Facebook, Live Journal, and MySpace be kept set to private settings.

Library staff should also be reminded not to disclose any patron information without express consent. This also goes for photographs and is especially true for photos or information about patrons under 18. If your library is having an event for teens, get parental permission before putting photos up on the library blog.

Kathryn Greenhill and Jean Hing Fay from Fremantle Western Australia have created a great basic outline for a library's social media policy. They have licensed it through Creative Commons for librarians all over the world to share and benefit from. Many of the ideas listed below could be of great help in creating your own policies.

One important aspect that they included is policies on moderation. While you may be able to have some control over what your employees are posting, patrons and the general Internet population might not always write what you want to see. Set your blog comments to not post automatically, instead allowing someone to read the posts first. This is not an excuse to only publish comments that show your library or company in a good light. Patrons will catch on fast if they only see highly filtered comments. Instead only filter out comments that includes unnecessary profanity, abuse, plagiarism or one of the other items listed below.

Social networking policies are always going to differ from business to business and from library to library. Though at the heart of every set of policies is the bottom line of be respectful. Be respectful to yourself, your organization, and others in the community. If you're being respectful then you'll be posting accurate and interesting information, you'll respond to negative feedback in a constructive manner, you won't share patron data, and overall you'll have a successful social networking policy that all your employees can understand and use.

Social Media Do’s

1. Be Professional – Talk the way you would talk to real people in professional situations.
2. Be Courteous – Be sure to listen & ask questions.
3. Be Accurate – Check your facts before you post and provide supporting sources if necessary.
4. Be Useful – Add content because you have something interesting to say, not for the sake of regular posting.
5. Be Intelligent – Provide some value. Don’t talk down. Offer insight.
6. Be Conversational –  Avoid overly pedantic or “composed” language. Don’t be afraid to bring in your own personality.
7. Be Non-confrontational – If you disagree, do so respectfully
8. Be Prompt – If you need to moderate or respond to a comment do so as quickly as possible
9. Be Identifiable – Use your real name and do not post anonymously.
10. Be Transparent – Disclose that you work for the library if this is relevant and be honest & truthful.

Social Media Don'ts

1. Don’t Share Secrets –If you aren’t sure you can disclose something, just don’t do it. Think about privacy, confidentiality and permission to use other people’s content.
2. Don’t Bad Mouth – Keep the language clean & avoid slamming people or companies.
3. Don’t Complain – If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
4. Don’t do Stupid Things – If it doesn’t help the Library or our community, don’t do it.
5. Don’t Defame – Show everyone respect.
6. Don’t Forget your day job –Social Media can consume you so don’t forget your other duties. Moderate, balanced use is essential.

Responsible moderation

Moderation is the act of reviewing and approving content from others. Our aim is to promote community conversation, so we will only remove content that:

• is abusive
• is off-topic
• contains personal and/or cultural attacks or insults
• promotes hate of any kind
• is offensive in nature or contains offensive language
• is spam
• is potentially libelous
• contains plagiarized material
• contains commercial content
• is detrimental in any way

Greenhill, K. (2010, September 10). A social media policy for a one branch public library [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://librariansmatter.com/blog/2010/09/10/a-social-media- policy-for- a-one-branch-public-library/

Kroski, E. (2009). Should your library have a social media policy?. School Library Journal, Retrieved from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6699104.html