Using My Discoveries and Social Media for Programming and Events


This section will explore ideas for using Discover to promote programming and events within the library. It is not meant as a complete list of possibilities, but as a jumping off point to get you thinking about the ways you can or would like to use Discover to promote services and events in your branch.

 

Book Clubs

Book clubs are full of individuals who love to discuss books and share opinions. Generally, they tend to be active within the library and, given the right incentive or motivation, make excellent contributors to Discover.

 

As discussed in the Youth Services section of this tutorial, imagine the following scenario:

 

Scenario There’s a keen and active book club at Spring Garden, as well as one in Woodlawn. They are knowledgeable about books and are interested in sharing their opinions on favourite books and what they thought of them. With Discover, these two book clubs can share reading ideas, reading lists or provide an interesting dialogue of book reviews with differing perspectives. Perhaps, using one unique tag, the book clubs involved at HPL can create a list of recommended titles for mystery lovers, romance readers and so on.

 

If book clubs are interested in sharing beyond HPL’s reading community, staff can assist in a sharing and reviewing experience - within the catalogue - with a book club in one of the many AquaBrowser libraries throughout the world. Because all of the user-contributed content is shared throughout the libraries using this product, it’s a great way to meet and engage with communities of similar interests beyond our physical borders.

 

Author Readings/Local Artists/Performers

Currently, if an author has come to one of our branches for an author reading and it’s been recorded, a link to that reading is available in the book’s bibliographic record. If you were to go into Alastair MacLeod’s record No Great Mischief there is a link to the author’s talk and reading. A staff member can easily post this record to Facebook, Twitter, or choose among a variety of other ways share this information. Patrons can too!

 

With the Share function in Discover, it is also possible to promote author readings or programs prior to the event. And, if we invite our community to engage in this sharing activity, literary events such as author readings throughout HRM can be promoted via our catalogue. For example, imagine a student at Dalhousie finding out about a talk celebrating the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee’s book, To Kill a Mockingbird. A user of Discover, he goes into our catalogue, finds a copy of the book and uploads a link to the record onto Facebook - or broadcasts it across Twitter, commenting on a the talk, where it’s going to be and when. If he follows HPL’s Twitter feed, he might include a “mention” (@Hfxpublib), which in turn, will alert staff to this talk. This may spark an idea for a display, reading lists or coincide with a local branch event also celebrating the 50th anniversary.

 

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