Leveraging on the campus blog platform to extend our reach to students and faculty at Nanyang Technological University Library

Abstract

Submission Leveraging on the campus blog platform to extend our reach to students and faculty at Nanyang Technological University Library NURHAZMAN ABDUL AZIZ Library, Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798 nurhazman@ntu.edu.sg CHIA YEW BOON Library, Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798 ybchia@ntu.edu.sg HAZEL LOH Library, Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798 ktvoo@ntu.edu.sg Purpose of this paper: The purpose of this paper is to present and share an exploratory learning journey in the adoption of social media in an academic institution. The Library and the Centre for IT Services (CITS) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore developed and implemented a campus wide blog platform to support learning, research and outreach. The Library led the collaboration which was funded by the University’s Cool Campus initiative in 2009. The Library had initiated the use of the blog platform for library outreach in 2006 and this has resulted in the opportunity to expand the platform beyond the Library to become a university wide implementation in support of learning, research or outreach activities in a social and informal way. Design/methodology/approach: The Library initially began a project to explore the feasibility of using a single blog platform on WordPress in 2006. It was a local installation with minimum server specifications and IT support to help maintain the server. As it was the first open source installation for our IT department, there was a high learning curve to support the server and application and also for our librarians to pick up the necessary skills to create and maintain blogs. We began our journey gradually with an internal library staff blog followed by a subject library blog for the Humanities and Social Sciences Library. Since then, the number of library blogs has grown steadily to 7 blogs. In 2009, with the adoption of the blog platform as a campus wide initiative under the Cool Campus project, the technical development and support of the platform was outsourced to a vendor for system scalability and long term support. With the launch of the campus blog platform in 2010, the Library actively initiated a project to develop 42 subject guides by our subject librarians to support the information needs of their users. The NTU blog team comprising librarians and IT staff also developed and worked on a plan to publicise, develop and train users in utilising the campus wide blog platform to serve their purpose and thus achieve the vision of a vibrant campus wide social network. Learning Outcomes: With a team to lead and support the campus wide social media platform, a number of learning outcomes can be listed from the planning, implementation, development, collaboration and dissemination stages. In short, this has been a new and exciting learning experience for librarians to champion a campus wide social media project. With this blog initiative, the growth in our online patrons’ visitorship to the digital library has been evident, thus placing the library as one of the highest accessed online services in the university. The library is also able to share its practical experience, learning points and useful tips for the implementation of a social web initiative with other libraries. What is original/value of paper: The paper shares the journey and experiences of the NTU Library from a non-technical perspective for the benefit of librarians and practising professionals who are developing or embarking on their social media initiatives. This is an original study on the expanded role of the Library in building a social media platform in an academic institution. Future research and studies could be done to compare various social media efforts implemented elsewhere, particularly in the Asia Pacific region.