Social Media Curation (Library Technology Reports)

Social media allows you to scale up a core librarian practice connecting your community to information and learning-- across geographic boundaries, 24/7. Addressing curation as the term is used colloquially, this issue of Library Technology Reports draws from 17 in-depth interviews to show how libraries are using social media to collect, organize, share, and interpret in short, how to tell a digital story to a specific audience.Additionally the authors use data, collected through an online survey that encompassed all library types, to offer a snapshot of this important collecting-connecting-curating-contributing practice. Also included is an annotated directory covering 66 tools for social media curation, organized by category with links to the websites.

Joyce Kasman Valenza is assistant professor at Rutgers University School of Communication and Information, USA, where she teaches courses in school library management and social media and is director of the MLS program. She has worked as a special, public, and school librarian. Currently she writes the NeverEnding Search blog for School Library Journal and also writes VOYA s Tag Team Tech column.Brenda L. Boyer is chair of the Information and Technology Resources department for the Kutztown Area School District (PA, USA), where she also serves as the high school librarian. She teaches information fluency and research skills in both brick-and-mortar and online settings, and has also taught graduate LIS courses as an adjunct at Kutztown University (PA, USA). Besides social media curation, her research interests include embedded librarianship, inquiry models, and online learning.Della Curtis retired in 2013 as coordinator of the Office of Library Information Services, Baltimore County Public Schools, USA (MD), where she provided district leadership in library information and information technologies for 169 Pre-K 12 school library media programs.