Investigative Exercise 10 Evaluation

The Sutherland Shire Library Service makes use of several web 2.0 technologies and websites. The library service has active social media pages, using Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to actively promote the library and its events to the public. The library service also uses RSS feeds to keep people up to date with events and as a Vimeo page where it posts videos of various library events and conferences such as author talks, training sessions and programs and other videos used to promote the library.

On the main page of the library website they also have a comment section, asking people to leave feedback about the library service in an attempt to involve the community in helping to further develop the library services by seeing what people have to say about the library and what areas people think can be improved.

Areas that the library makes use of other Web 2.0 technologies in the services it provides are:

Local Studies – The Library has uploaded a series of podcasts detailing interviews with long term residents of the Sutherland Shire.

These can be found here

Children’s Resources– The library has several learning games on its website to allow children to practice literature, spelling and mathematics.

Adult fiction – In the Library catalogue there are sections that allow people to submit their own reviews of items they have read/viewed and also allows people to create their own tags for books which other people can then use and add to in turn.

Investigative Exercise 5 Social Networking

Facebook, Myspace and other social media sites are greatly important for libraries. With the development of Web 2.0 technologies, people have flocked to these sites to be able to create, share and link content with other people. It is estimated that there are 1.44 billion Facebook users across the globe. That is just one social media site. Libraries need to tap into these websites in order to connect with their users in order to promote themselves and their events, not only to people who are already members and users of the library but to those who are not yet users or members, to be able to draw them in using Facebook or other social media and gain access to these other people through promotion from the library itself but also from library clients who promote the site just by subscribing or ‘liking’ it on their own pages.