I have returned from Dallas/Fort Worth with a sense of optimism and a lots and lots of notes to compile into an understandable trip report. However, my task for today is to blog about the exciting future plans of the Independent Ideas.
At the AISL conference I talked about how Dallas was my 10 year anniversary. I started AISL in Charlottesville as a newbie and the Dallas conference was what spurred me to become involved. I offered to help with the listserv after the conference and was the tech coordinator for many years after that, before moving onto the Board and eventually being asked to serve as President.
My vision for the association is to get our voice, the voice of the independent school librarian, to be heard. I want our independent voice out there in social media and I want our peers to know what we are doing. In order to do that, we, as independent school librarians, need to be involved with social media. We need to connect with AISL and we need to promote ourselves and our work. I did a survey recently on social media and our involvement in it. Out of 468 members, only 91 responded (the survey results can be found HERE)
Tech evangelist Avinash Kausik tweeted: “Social media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. No one actually knows how. When finally done, there is surprise it’s not better.” (Claire will be blogging about our book discussion on It’s Complicated and whether we should be in the teens social media world according to Danah Boyd.)
Above is the postcard we handed out at the conference. It has links to all of our AISL social media links. If you aren’t already connected to AISL in these venues, please connect.
This link will take you to our AISL facebook site.
This link will take you to the AISL pinterest boards. We would love for you to add your pins!
We would love for you to follow AISL and tweet us!
Now, as for what is going on with the Independent Ideas blog. Currently, having the blog on the website is not working for us. So Claire Hazzard, board member and tech guru, will be moving the blog to its own website with its own URL. That will give us a higher profile and better ratings.
Additionally, we will be creating bio pages for each of our bloggers with link backs to their school library pages and blogs. I’m always interested in finding out more about the writers and the way we are set up now doesn’t allow us to do that. Having our own blog site will allow us the ability to highlight our writers.
While at the conference, Barbara Share, who is the blog coordinator and moderator, was able to corral some more guest bloggers. So you will be seeing some new bylines in the coming weeks and months ahead. If you are at all interested in doing a guest post, please notify Barbara (her info is on the AISL wiki).
The blog, the wiki, our twitter, pinterest and facebook page are all social media outlets, and yes, they can be very labor intensive at times. But they can also be great ways to promote your program, your library, your students, yourself and what you have accomplished. Too often we work alone in our libraries for our students and we don’t share the amazing things that we do to help someone find that book, discover the love of reading, solve that problem, research that question, use technology in a certain way, collaborate with teachers. Next time you do something, don’t just close up shop and go home. Write it up and send it to me or Barbara Share as a blog post.
Share your stories. We all want to know what’s going on in your library.
AISL ONE VOICE!
Thanks for sharing the results of the survey – the text responses in particular make for fascinating reading. I’m also interested in the low numbers of student administered social media channels – totally understandable, and I’m not sure we would do it :), but interesting to consider. I HAVE noticed that people that use social media use it A LOT. Twitter is my favourite – I decided to pick one and make it work for me; I’m not a photo taker, and I’m still a little uneasy on the personal vs professional re Facebook, but Twitter ‘makes sense’ to me, and I use it frequently, both as a consumer and producer.
I’m building my expertise with Twitter. Not quite fully comfortable yet but excited about the different connections it allows. I find the blog a great EASY way to send a link to administration about interesting topics that are ‘trending’ in the library world.
Thanks for the Social Media Round-up, CD. Is the survey still open for those folks who haven’t yet done it?
I am inspired to get past my mental block about Twitter and to use my long dormant account. So here goes. I just reset my password and I am off……..Thank you Clare and CD.
Thanks for rallying us to promote our libraries and AISL
I mentioned in my survey response that we might promote AISL I other library conference venues.
I presented a session at Tennessee Library Association Conference and I included a screenshot and link to the All About Shakespeare Pinterest page that AISL hosts. A new TN librarian came to me after the presentation and wanted to know more about AISL. I will be sending her a link to our AISL blog and website. I hope we will be adding a new enthusiastic member soon.