4 Successful social media campaigns for and by libraries in UiTM Perlis

Libraries are some of the most active users of social media and it is no surprise
that many have taken to using new media to spread their message and in serious
cases promote their cause. Some of these campaigns are started by librarians
others have purely grassroot orgins. Some are targeted only/mainly to their fellow
librarians, while others are meant for everyone. Stephen Abram has a 2010 post
listing many Facebook based "Save the Library Campaigns" (another list by ALA here)
and it's interesting to see that many of the Facebook Pages have massive number
of fans, some as high as 15,000 in some cases. Andy Wawoodworth who is
certainly no stranger to using online tools for library Advocacy notes the following
in a insightful post   about setting up a Facebook group   Save NJ Libraries.

"For myself, it was wonderful to see that over 15,000 people joined the group;
but in the back of my mind, I had my doubts. How many of those people are
fellow librarians joining in solidarity? How many actual New Jersey residents
are actively monitoring the group? How many NJ people are sharing the
information to their friend? How many people in the group are contacting their 
elected officials? For these questions, I had no answers nor hunches; there is
no way to measure it and my gut feelings did not feel reliable. While some 
would argue that the larger the number the higher the probability of active 
members, I would answer and say that probability does not translate into 
measurable results. It also relies on the false premise that each person who 
joins the group has an equal chance of taking further action."


In the concluding words of the blog post Andy also alludes I believe to
"Small Change: Why the Revolution Will not be Tweeted" where Malcolm Gladwell
claims that online campaigns are unlikely to result in social change as a "like" or tweet
is so easy to do and does not prompt other action.

I think he has a point, does 15,000 fans of "save library X" fanpage really help if 

most just click "like" and forget about it?  Does that sway the powers that be? More

to the point, in this day and age, does having 15,000 fans of "Save a library" with no

other action really make sufficient news for traditional mass media to take notice and

help to spread the word out? I don't know. In recent months, I have noticed however

a couple of campaigns that seem to have resulted in actions that go beyond the purely

online realm.

#savelibraries
Why they did it : Over 375 libraries in the UK threatened with closure due to budget cuts
What they did :  Users on Twitter began tweeting ""Libraries are important because ...
[fill in your answer & RT] ", with hashtag #savelibraries. Done initially in support of UK
Libraries but spread to the US. A search shows that #savelibraries has in fact being
a tag used on Twitter as far back as March 2010 but here we are talking about a
specific use that occurred in Jan 2011. See later for more details
How it started :  Started spontaneously by Shropshire ICT lecturer @MarDixon  ,
supported by Voices for Library. More information