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Teaching social media in public libraries – Danish experiences

Carl Gustav Johannsen (Royal School of Library and Information Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark)

The Bottom Line

ISSN: 0888-045X

Article publication date: 6 July 2015

1218

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to report on a Danish Web 2.0 user training project from 2009. Besides, reporting the main results of the project, the paper discusses some broader perspectives concerning social media in library context. Many public and academic libraries worldwide have, inspired by the American “23 Things” Web 2.0 training program, been involved in training and educating both of their internal staff and of their users. The key questions are: whether concepts like “23 Things” and the like are likely to contribute to solving the problems of the computer illiterate segments of the population and whether Web 2.0, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and the like represent subjects which should be legitimately taught as part of professional public and academic library activities.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on systematic evaluation of public library-based social media courses, inspired by the “29 Things” concept, targeted at users.

Findings

The article points out that it is questionable whether the “23 Things” project, as based on principles of self-directed learning, ownership for one’s own learning and similar popular notions, which fit very well into the taste and preferences of computer literate middle-class individuals, will also work among computer illiterate citizens. Concerning the second key question, the article points out that only a few critical opinions are against social media in libraries and that the presence of social media is legitimized through different reasons, including marketing, learning and higher-order purposes.

Originality/value

The findings of the Danish public library social media courses in 2009 have not been reported before.

Keywords

Citation

Johannsen, C.G. (2015), "Teaching social media in public libraries – Danish experiences", The Bottom Line, Vol. 28 No. 1/2, pp. 19-25. https://doi.org/10.1108/BL-01-2015-0001

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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