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- 10 February 2015
See also Digital liaison | Emerging technology librarian | Health librarian competencies (draft) | Social media evaluation | Media literacy
This wiki entry is a listing of the top ten competencies for social media-literate librarians and archivists who are providing access to collections and services using social media. To begin, you may wish to get a broader perspective on the issues by reading the entry on media literacy. The ten competencies listed below are talking points rather than prescriptive competencies; they undoubtedly branch off into all kinds of other competencies, knowledge and skills. All of this is worth (re)consideration as we move further into developing our social media literacy knowledge and skills. Murphy & Moulaison (2009) have written a fine document on this topic, and related the framework back to the ACRL information literacy competencies.
See Vanwynsberghe H, et al. The librarian 2.0: identifying a typology of librarians’ social media literacy. J Librarianship Info Sci. 28 January 2014: 0961000613520027.
Top Ten (10) Social Media Competencies for Information Professionals
- Understand, explain and teach others about the principles and trends of social media, web 2.0 (and library 2.0 / archives 2.0)
- List major tools, categories and affordances of social networking
- Apply social media to solve information problems, and communicate digitally with users
- Use social networking sites for promotional, reference and instructional services in libraries
- Navigate, evaluate and create content on social networking sites
- Follow netiquette, conform to ethical standards and interact appropriately with others online
- Explain copyright, security and privacy issues on social media to colleagues and user communities
- Understand the importance of digital identity and reputation management using social media
- Explain related terminology such as collaboration 2.0, remix and open source
- Renew social media competencies, advocate for institutional strategies and policies and build evidence base in social media
A word of caution to librarians: "...Don't use any social media to provide library service if a majority of users cannot access the tool in the first place. I would only add that you can't plan for a sustainable service using the volatile tools of the social web. Many tools are best used for short bursts of contact and communication with your user groups or for professional networking..." — Dean Giustini
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- Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of ALA and Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.
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- Bosque DD, Lampert C. A chance of storms: new librarians navigating technology tempests. Tech Serv Q. 2009;26(4):261.
- Bridges LM. Librarian as professor of social media literacy. J Libr Innovat. 2012;3(1):48-65.
- Chan A. User competencies understanding the user experience of social media: a view from social interaction design. Slideshare, 2008.
- Cohen D. Creating scholarly tools and resources for the digital ecosystem: building connections in the Zotero project. First Monday. 2008;13(8).
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- Dieu B, Stevens V. Pedagogical affordances of syndication, aggregation and mashup of content on the web. TESL-EJ. 2007;11:1.
- Dorney E. Emerging technologies at Towson University: the hat trick. Coll Res Libr News. 2009;70(9).
- Giustini D. Evidence-based teaching for health librarians: some questions and considerations. JCHLA / JABSC. 2010;31(1):7-10.
- Giustini D. All health librarians need to build basic web 2.0 skills. JCHLA / JABSC. 2010
- Grindrod K, Forgione A, Tsuyuki RT, Gavura S, Giustini D. Pharmacy 2.0: a scoping review of social media use in pharmacy. Res Social Adm Pharm. 2013 Jun 27.
- Herrera-Viedma E, López-Gijón J. Libraries' social role in the information age. Science. 2013 Mar 22;339(6126):1382.
- Johnson L, Smith R, Willis H, Levine A, Haywood K. The 2011 Horizon Report. Austin, Texas: New Media Consortium.
- Jonassen D, Howland J, Moore J, Marra R. Learning to solve problems with technology: a constructivist perspective. London: Merrill; 2003.
- Mackey TP, Jacobson TE. Re-conceptualizing information literacy as a metaliteracy for social media. Information Literacy Research Seminar, 2010.
- Mathews J, Pardue H. The presence of IT skill sets in librarian position announcements. Coll Res Libr. 2009;70(3):250-7.
- Murphy J, Moulaison H. Social networking literacy competencies for librarians: exploring considerations and engaging participation. ACRL Conference, 2009. and his paper.
- Rheingold H. Attention, and other 21st-century social media literacies. EDU-CAUSE Rev. 2010;45(5):14-24.
- Tess PA. The role of social media in higher education classes (real and virtual) - a literature review. Comp Hum Behav. 2013.
- Vanwynsberghe H, et al. The librarian 2.0: identifying a typology of librarians’ social media literacy. J Librarianship Info Sci. 28 January 2014: 0961000613520027.
- Witek D, Grettano T. Information literacy on Facebook: an analysis. Ref Serv Rev. 2012;40(2):242-257.