Maryland Libraries & Social Media

Here at the LATI Blog, we recently got a request to investigate how Maryland libraries are using social media and what success the libraries have had with it. Today we bring you the scoop on what the Harford County Public Library (HCPL) system is doing!

Dave McLaughlin, webmaster at the forefront of HCPL's official social media efforts had the following to share:

Harford County Public Library has recently started and ramped up a number of social networking initiatives. We have a Facebook page and Twitter account, both of which are used to broadcast updates from our website and special messages, such as closings, etc. We are also posting many photos from renovation projects, recent programs, etc. to Flickr and have started a YouTube channel that is currently used for advocacy videos and our iPhone app promotional video.

We will continue to expand these presences, but in the last month and a half (since the launch of our new website, on which we display a Facebook logo that links to our Facebook page) our number of fans on Facebook has quadrupled. Customers are commenting on our Facebook page and tweeting about us and we are able to engage them in discussions via both services.

One quick success story:

With all of the recent snow, we made sure to quickly post any information about closings to our social networking accounts. One day, shortly after posting that we would be closed, customers started a discussion on our Facebook page that went like this:

"So, if I have movies due tomorrow I won't get charged?"

"No - they said yesterday that no fines will be charged for items due when the library is closed - as long as they are returned the next day."

"are the parking lots cleared so we can at least drop them off when we are able to get out of our homes?"

"Abingdon was clear when I went by a couple hours ago"

"Do you need volunteers to help clear the backlog?"

While we are generally pretty quick at responding to comments and questions, our customers were answering other customers’ questions before we even had a chance. We followed up with more information, but I consider this a huge success!