National Archives, Social Networking and New Media (initial thoughts)

Below is a chart to compare how different the National Archives of the US, UK and Australia are using social media.




All three are quite involved by having RSS feeds, are on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, do podcasting, allow some sort of tagging and have email newsletters.

Reasons why libraries should be on social media:

• Social media is instant, the information the goes global as soon as it is entered
• RSS feeds (used by all three archives in this post) allow users to receive information tailored to their needs
• Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter (used again by all three archives in this post) allow organizations two way communication with users.
• Flickr, podcasts and You Tube can provide a rich user experience with images and sound
• Crowd sourcing and tagging allow for users to contribute to the conversation and provide information the library might not have been able to collect before
• 2 out of the three archives in this post include some sort of social media policy in their web site. This might be because they want their users to feel comfortable being involved with the archives