Jump to the following links to explore library social media

 

Why Follow Us

Through our social media you will learn about MSU, libraries, and the famed quest for knowledge. Our social media activity is wide-ranging, so at any given point we will post about the history of campus, activities and events, historical images of MSU and Montana, study tips, research resources, and more. Check us out! 

Where To Follow Us

You can find MSU Library on the following social media platforms:

 

You can find Acoustic Atlas on Twitter:

What We Expect

People talking

There is a lot going on at MSU Library, and many ways for you connect with us.

Social media is one of the ways we want to share with you and have you share with us. Since social media works by being "social," we encourage you to comment, re-tweet, and share your stories in all those social media ways.

We also want to share your experiences, enthusiasm, and ideas with others, so we reserve the right to reuse your comments for research purposes and promotional materials so that we can understand and showcase our thriving online community.

Several librarians and staff members at MSU Library are involved in our social media projects and, like all of you, we are individuals and have different ways of expressing ourselves in our personal and professional lives. As members of our campus and online social media community, we ask you to follow the standards and guidelines of the major social media sites. As far as rules go, we agree with what Twitter and Instagram have to say on the matter.

We also have guidelines specific to our community. We will not post or tolerate posts that contain:

  • Items or comments that are obscene, racist, derogatory, or similarly objectionable in their content
  • Personal attacks, insults, or threatening language
  • Potentially libelous statements
  • Plagiarized or copyrighted material
  • Commercial promotions or spam

Our Mission & Goals

Photo of an open house prize winnerLibrary outreach staff lead the library’s social media efforts. They work in conjunction with librarians and staff to develop content that aligns with the library’s mission, visions, and values. They monitor the pages, engage with the audience and the larger online community through regular social media activity, and identify new ways to increase the visibility of the library's social media profile both on campus and online. Additionally, they review monthly analytics and conduct periodic social media program evaluations. A graphic design/administrative student employee assists with content creation, which helps keep the student point of view at the forefront of the conversation.

Through social media, the library strives to:

  • Engage a growing and active university community by expressing through certain high-trafficked social media channels the services, collections, and personality of the library and the library employees.
  • Expand beyond the concept of "Library as Building" by creating interactive online information-sharing spaces that emphasize "Library as Services and "Library as Resources" to students, researchers, faculty, and to the greater library, university, and Montana community.
  • Cultivate these spaces to be consistent with the concept of the library learning commons, recognizing that library-users are crafting online lives that reflect and interact seamlessly with their off-line world.
  • Develop relationships through social media that will ultimately allow our community to discover a library that is more relevant, approachable, valuable, and vital, with resulting increases in foot traffic, virtual and in-person reference interactions, and overall awareness and use of library services and library resources.
  • Develop and strengthen partnerships with the MSU and Bozeman communities through its social media channels.
  • Serve as social media leaders on campus and in the community by developing expertise through research, real-time interactions, platform and trend awareness, instructional and teaching sessions, engagingRufus and Bobkittensdiscussion acrosscampus social media constituencies, and successful online community building.
  • Conduct research regularly to assess the impact and value of the MSU Library's social media activity across all platforms.

Meet Our Mascots 

Rufus and the four Bobkittens are the library’s social media mascots. These figures help personify MSU Library and give  voice to its story by creating a distinct, recognizable personality. Rufus and the Bobkittens help our audience connect with the library in a creative way and allow the audience to engage in the conversation.

Social Media Platform Guide

Twitter

  • Community Focus: Undergraduate and graduate students; MSU Faculty members; other MSUMSU Library and Mitchell Douglas tweet about the library's creatively named staplers. units/departments; library and information professionals and organizations
  • Goal: Build an online community of library-supporters via social media engagement, accomplished through regular interactions with students and others on Twitter; form partnerships through mutual support of other MSU entities via Twitter; engage and connect with other libraries, librarians, library organizations; Increase awareness of library services, resources.
  • Values: Availability to help students; care/concern for followers; professional engagement; scholarly research; specialized library services and resources
  • Activity Focus: Emphasis information sharing and social interaction
  • Tone and Tenor: Welcoming, warm, cheerful, energetic
  • Posting Frequency: Three to five per week
  • Posting Categories: Events, news and other content that focuses on matters important to students who use the library. New databases, current databases and guides, information and data/scholarly communication news, Rufus and the Bobkittens
  • Services and ResourcesAsk-a-librarian, library databases, institutional repository content, copyright and author services, library-partner organizations (Writing Center, Testing Center, SmartyCats, UIT, etc.), open job positions
  • Assessment: Tracking interactions through Twitter Analytics, Google Analytics, focus groups, and user interviews

Instagram

  • Community Focus: Campus and local Bozeman area community; alumni

    An Instagram post congratulats library student employess who are graduating.

  • Goal: Raise awareness of library resources (special/digital collections, spaces); build community around campus history
  • Values: History (Bozeman, campus, library)
  • Activity Focus: Historical content  
  • Tone and Tenor: Light-hearted
  • Posting Frequency: One to three times per weekly
  • Posting Categories: Reference question series (#letmelibrarianthatforyou), historical photos with context, Furniture/building highlights, student highlights, nature/landscapes

YouTube

  • Community Focus: Campus and Bozeman community; alumni
  • Goal: Within the channel, the audience can browse videos produced by or affiliated with MSU Library. Content ranges from instructional tutorials and workshops to lectures and events and more.
  • Values: Intellectual curiosity; information sharing; community building; friendly and accessible library service; history (Bozeman, campus, library)
  • Activity Focus: Emphasis on information sharing while remaining responsive to social interaction
  • Tone and Tenor: Welcoming, warm, cheerful, energetic
  • Posting Frequency: Content is added as it is created
  • Posting Categories: Videos of events, workshops, outreach activities, and so forth
  • YouTube Channels:
    • Workshops and tutorials
    • Outreach activities and events
    • Digital literacy
    • From the Acoustic Atlas
    • Banned Books
    • Tribal Colleges
    • Poetry
    • Trout