“Fish where the fish are.” Those five words have been repeated almost mantra-like as the Library has established a growing presence in online social networks and websites that allow users to generate and share content—sites that are often collectively referred to as “web 2.0.”
In recent months, the Library has added several arrows to its web 2.0 quiver, including Twitter, YouTube, iTunes U and Facebook.
Several factors are considered before the Library participates in such pilot projects, including how resource-intense they are, their compatibility with Library missions and strategies, and potential audience reach—selection criteria that are often referred to as “low-hanging fruit.” All materials that are uploaded to the various sites are also available on www.loc.gov, and usually in much higher-quality form.
Library officials say the projects are not being done on a lark, but instead have specific aims: to increase awareness of Library collections and interest readers, to develop new communication channels and new relationships, to reach new audiences, and to experiment with and explore new technologies.
Twitter and Facebook are two of the Library’s more recent excursions into web 2.0 waters. By virtually every available measure, the Library’s efforts, even the most nascent, have been enormously successful.
The Library’s feed on Twitter—a popular “micro-blogging” site that received recent attention for facilitating communication after controversial elections in Iran-launched in January. As of this writing, the feed has attracted about 16,600 “followers,” far outpacing even some of the largest executive agencies. By one accounting, it ranks third in the federal government behind only the White House and NASA, and roughly double the number of State Department followers.
Two of the many faces of the Library of Congress on the social web, Twitter (left) and iTunes U.
Posts on Twitter, known as tweets, are often “re-tweeted” by other Twitter users, which vastly increases the number of people who read them. One tweet announcing that the Library would archive commentary in the Twitter community about Judge Sonia Sotomayor was re-tweeted by scores of other users.
Even though the Library is a relatively recent entrant on the video-sharing site YouTube, having begun in April, it already ranks fifth among federal government channels in the number of channel views-behind only the White House, NASA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the State Department—and is third in terms of channel subscribers. The channel includes National Book Festival author presentations, scholarly lectures from the Kluge Center, and historic films from Library collections, among others.
The YouTube pilot project is explained, with a link to the Library’s channel, here: www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/youtube.html.
The Library launched a site on iTunes U on June 30. iTunes U is an area of Apple’s iTunes Store that offers free education audio and video content from many of the world’s top universities and other institutions. It even offers materials such as PDF documents. Some of the same materials on YouTube are made available on iTunes U but with additions such as audio-only podcasts and cataloging courses.
One advantage iTunes U has over other sites is users’ ability to download content to portable devices for later use. More than 40,000 Library tracks were downloaded within the first week.
Two of the many faces of the Library of Congress on the social web, YouTube (left) and Facebook.
Just days later, the Library’s official “fan page” on Facebook—a social networking site with more than 200 million active users—went live. The page provides a single place where information about Library events, photos, interaction with Facebook users, and other material can be brought together. Little more than a week after the launch, the Library had already amassed more than 5,500 fans.
A key component of web 2.0 includes tools that allow users to share content, such as the ability to embed a YouTube video on one’s own blog or social-networking page. This so-called viral effect can exponentially increase the number of people who see a particular piece of content.
For instance, a Library video recounting the history of Rosie the Riveter has received nearly 14,000 views over three months on YouTube, largely the result embedding across the web. By contrast, the same video that has been available for more than five years on loc.gov has received about 20,000 total views.
Or take the example of the World Digital Library. Within days of the WDL’s launch, thousands of visits to the site were attributable to content embedded on a single site: Facebook.
It is the Library’s project with photo-sharing site Flickr that has received more attention than any other, and it continues to roll on like a juggernaut. (See Information Bulletin, January/February 2009.)
As of mid-July, Library photographs on Flickr had received 18.4 million total views and continue to attract roughly 800,000 views per month, and the Library account had attracted more than 23,000 contacts, or fans. Staff members continue to add images to existing photo sets, and to upload new sets, such as a group of Lincoln-related images timed to coincide with the recent Lincoln exhibition, which helps explain the sustained interest.
Library staff working on web 2.0 projects point out that the dynamic nature of these sites has the added benefit of higher rankings on search engines, a critical means of steering people toward content. For example, a recent Google search for a famous photograph of baseball player Germany Schaefer from the Library’s collections listed the image on loc.gov as the 43rd result, while the same image on the Library’s Flickr page ranked No. 1.
Links to all Library web 2.0 sites are listed on the Library’s blog at www.loc.gov/blog/.
Michelle Springer, project manager for digital initiatives in the Office of Strategic Initiatives, points out that the Library can measure outcomes both quantitatively and qualitatively.
“I think the Library has done extraordinarily well by either measure,” she said. “Quantitatively, our numbers reflect the thirst for high-quality collections and content the Library provides. Qualitative measures such as the level of engagement with our content are also strong, such as communities interacting with the Library and each other about Library content, and ‘grassroots intermediaries’ re-sending our information to their personal networks.”
In the near term, the Library will be rolling out even more ways for its audiences to access its resources. Plans are underway to allow people to subscribe to text-message updates about the National Book Festival, and a version of the NBF website is being developed that is optimized for mobile devices. In addition, an iPhone application providing a virtual tour of the Thomas Jefferson Building is nearing completion.
The Library’s web 2.0 projects, and the ways in which they have been executed, have drawn notice from many quarters. Perhaps the highest praise was bestowed by the influential website nextgov.com, which wrote, “Maybe the (Obama) administration should get some tips from the Library of Congress.”
