for Tumblr T-shirt Contest /02 bv albyantoniazzi on Flickr (CC)
I was pleased as punch to get this week’s Thing as I spend the majority of my free time giggling from posts on Tumblr. I think libraries and GLAM organisations will find that their pre-existing curatorial skills should make the transition to curating through social tools easy. In this Thing, we are particularly looking at Tumblr, Pinterest, and Scoop.it
Pinterest was the fastest social network site to reach 10 million users in 2011 and Tumblr has been in the press recently as Yahoo acquired the service for $1.1 billion. So why are these so popular?
Curatorial tools give users easy ways in which to gather their favourite interests across the internet and host all the pictures, recipes, conversations, news articles, links, videos in one place. The popularity of these particular curatorial tools is because of the social aspect: the community that evolves through the sharing of similar items (such as the fandom communities on Tumblr or the military spouses on Pinterest).
Pinterest + iPad = Love by bunchesandbits on Flickr (CC)
DISCOVER
– Pinterest gives users the ability to create their own virtual ‘pinboard’ which can be arranged by topic. The pins of pictures or videos can be ‘repinned’ on someone else’s board which can be either public, private, or a community board. The home feed is the area in which you can browse the new content from other pinboards which you follow.
Libraries have been using Pinterest for marketing collections and events, displaying book covers, creating reading lists, and showcasing historic collections.
The following are some links for some current uses of Pinterest by Libraries:
– Tumblr allows users to blog their own media or ‘reblog’ others’ work. Hashtags are used to navigate categories across tumblr, or within individual blogs. A tumblr user can have multiple blogs under the single username and users can enable an ‘ask’ or ‘submit’ function for their blogs.
This fantastic article The Library Is Open: A Look at Librarians and Tumblr is a great starters guide to tumblr and a glimpse into the library activity happening on Tumblr.
Tumblr Enjoyment by hunsonisgroovy on Flickr (CC)
Scoop.It is a ‘create your own magazine’ service which allows you to ‘clip’ from websites, Twitter, RSS feeds, YouTube, Slideshare, Facebook, and custom Google searches. It allows you to enter sources and it then provides suggestions for you to Scoop It and add commentary for customizable topics based magazines.
EXPLORE
Pinterest
Sign up to Pinterest and download the app.
Create a pinboard on a library topic and find some pins to add to your pinboard.
Follow:
Tumblr
Sign up to Tumblr and download the app.
Find and reblog library posts through the hashtag #library programming or #tumblarians.
Follow:
Scoop.It.
Sign up to Scoop.It.
Create a library based topic and add three sources: ALIA.org.au, LJ.libraryjournal.com and a twitter source. Start scooping!
Some other potential curatorial tools include Bundlr, Paperli or Storify.
THINKING POINTS
– Users stay on Tumblr longer than they stay on Facebook. What does that mean for your Facebook content and would it be more appropriate to certain library programming marketing on Tumblr?
– How could Scoop.It help you keep on top of professional development? Would it be an indispensable learning tool for information literacy?
– Could you provide bookmarklets to Tumblr and Pinterest on your library catalogue records? How much of your collection is currently being pinned and reblogged?
– Can you link your catalogue to these incredibly browse-able sites? Could you display your newest acquisitions covers on Pinterest?
– Authors like John Green and Neil Gaiman and many others are participating on Tumblr, could you have your book events and programming online?
Post by @klfair!
This post is a remix from Thing 14 on 23 Mobile Things!
Tags: bundlr, paperli, pinterest, scoopit, storify, tumblr
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