Library at BINcA

So this week I did a fair amount of reflecting and thinking about how much of my thinking about social media is personal vs professional. I can see that a lot of people in all kinds of fields are using social media to advance themselves/their cause/their work but I can’t help but feel that the values and balance are off kilter. My husband likes to say that there are some people who like to talk about the work (managers) and other people who like to do the work. He and I have always been people who would prefer to do the work rather than talk about it. Using social media in a professional context seems like just a way for more people to talk about the work rather than do it. If you are trying to promote a book you just wrote, I get it. You HAVE to talk about the work in order to make it remunerative. But if you are a teacher or a librarian spending a ton of time making cute videos about how to glue books together or describing how Mondays are hard, I am not interested.

Looking at the list of social media sites below that I spent some time with this week, I am struck by two things: 

1. Content without context (95% of TikTok as far as I am concerned) is useless unless it is pure entertainment. 
2. Some social media, particularly the blogs that are a curated group effort like No Flying Tights, are providing a service by reviewing a ton of content I could never read all on my own.

I am a wise woman. Some people even think I am funny. I have good advice to offer in all sorts of realms but only when I know the context. I can’t tell the whole random world what to read next, but if you tell me the last book you liked, I probably have a good suggestion. I have no idea what to tell most kids who are trying to choose a college right now, but I have plenty to say to the 15 seniors at my school seriously considering 4 year colleges. My particular brand of smarts belongs in the library and with my students, not wasted on a two minute video. 

I spent about 10 years taking LOTS of pictures, both for my family and for my work. I have photographed children’s orchestra concerts and soccer state tournament games. I used to post mise en place photos for every dessert I baked as well as the usual fun pictures of the kids and their friends growing up. I understand and appreciate the enjoyment and community that all these kinds of photos can bring. Through the pandemic, I got out of a lot of habits – cooking for large groups, hosting parties – and my kids got older and moved away. I am less interested in taking pictures of myself doing homework than when I was baking sticky buns. I will try to figure out when and how to contribute to the social media conversation but just know that it’s not easy.

Below are my recommendations based on a week of dipping my toes in and out of the social media tide pools.

Instagram:

We Need Diverse Books – This is an organization I am familiar with both in terms of organizers and authors so I turn to them for recommendations and book giveaways. 

American Library Association – I have a lot to learn about best practices and, since I am literally building a library from the ground up, there is no library topic I’m not interested in.

The Book Wrangler – This guy has an incredible amount of work product to browse through, borrow, buy, reflect on etc. I admire the hustle and I can imagine coming back to his page for ideas and inspiration even though he mostly focuses on children’s books. What I don’t like is that it’s hard to find out who he is or what he does for a living. Maybe he just sells worksheets and tshirts….

Blogs:

No Flying Tights – This blog is the brainchild of Robin Brenner, the Teen Librarian for the Brookline Public Library and it’s all about comics and graphic novels. She has a great line-up of reviewers from all over the country. Graphic novels are a great way to get my students who are interested in stories of all kinds but who still struggle with English to be able to access rich, complex stories with literally just fewer words and more visual references. Now that I have the YA books chosen by Mackin for the Opening Day Collection, I could probably spend every dollar of book buying money for the next three years on graphic novels and still not get the balance right.

Don’t Shush Me or Adventures of a High School Librarian – This blog is by a high school librarian named Kelsey who has a lot of experience presenting and writing as well as teaching and being a librarian. Her blog has come up/been recommended several times in different contexts, particularly around dynamic shelving. I am interested in what she’s writing about and she has lots of concrete suggestions.

Boston Public Library Blogs – I know it’s weird but I am a hometown girl. I am interested in local events and writers and recommendations. This blog has a diverse set of writers and topics and I like the tone and versatility. For example, the most recent post is about Banned Books and it has reviews and information about specific books but it also has news about recent attempts to ban books in MA.

TikTok – I’m trying….

Amanda, aka Adventures of a Librarian – There’s a lot of silly stuff to sit through here but I think she might have some good ideas. I will keep checking back.

Cait the Librarian – She posts a lot of “day in the life of” kinds of videos which are a neat window into her work. I don’t know how useful this will be for me but I can imagine it will be fun to check in.

My social media plan:

I will make an effort to check in with the bloggers listed above and learn something new I can use/promote/add to my list of books to buy every week. The students at my school DO like to see themselves on Instagram and our alumni, in particular, like to follow along. I will set as a goal to post weekly in one of our four(!) Instagram feeds – @bincabps, @binca_alumni, @bincawritersroom, and @bincareads which is a very old account but used to post pictures of students and staff “caught reading”. Now that we have actual books in the library, I hope to have more to post.