The Engineering Library Blog

One of my goals in my current job at the University of Washington Engineering Library is to reach out to our patrons virtually. I started small by creating a Facebook page for us. Then, in part to add content to the Fb page, I created a blog. The blog posts are automatically imported to the Fb page as notes, so there's no need to follow both. The patron can choose whichever is most convenient.

For guidance in these endeavors I turned to many pro bloggers and Library 2.0ers. Here are some good examples of the advice that's out there for beginners:

• David Lee King's What can you do with a Facebook page?
• LibrarianInBlack's Ten Social Networking Tips for Libraries
• iLibrarian points to the Ultimate Blogger Writing Guide

It's also important to know if your work is paying off (that is, actually being used). Facebook makes it easy to follow that data with their "insights" feature, and for the blog I use Google Analytics.