Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The Library's Global Footprint (2010)

(Last Updated:  March 26, 2025)


Librarian Suzanne Walker, Director of Youth Services (2007-2012), spearheaded Mooresville Public Library's social media initiative in 2010, when the library registered various online social media accounts.  Numerous staff wrote readers' advisory, historical, humorous, and youth services program blogs from 2010 through 2016.  Due to their time-sensitive content, such as now-past program dates or now-completed events, all of these blogs have either been removed or are no longer active (as of 2017), but several remain online as archives.
 
Library staff also used an online document repository called DocStoc (now defunct) (2010-2015), as well as Slideshare (2012-2020), a PDF slideshow app; Flickr (2008-2014), an online digital image repository; and the social networking website Tumblr (2011-2014).  Some of this digital content remains available online, although it is not updated.

As of May 6, 2023, the library was actively maintaining these social media sites below (with dates of origin in parentheses):
The following blogs remain online but are not currently updated:

MPL has established a global footprint through its use of social media.  Patrons worldwide followed the library's blogs, watched the library's videos, listened to the library composer's music, looked at the library's program photographs, and downloaded or viewed the library's digitized images, handouts, or slideshows.  They continue to follow MPL on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Discord.  This social media presence supplements the library's website, which has existed (in three or four different versions) for a decade and a half.
 
Besides social media, the library's marketing team uses more traditional technologies to promote library programs, services, and resources, such as an outdoor LED sign, in-house TV monitors (showing an assortment of library videos), and, of course, print materials (signs, pamphlets, brochures, handouts, bookmarks, etc.).

The library's social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Discord, and Instagram, have, along with the library's blogs, reached over a million readers.  In March, 2017, the library's YouTube video viewership surpassed one million, at the time second in the country among public libraries (first was the New York Public Library's YouTube channel; third was Johnson County [Indiana] Public Library's YouTube channel.  By 2025, these libraries had been surpassed by Columbus [Ohio] Metropolitan Library's YouTube channel, which had garnered over seven million views.).  In 2021, MPL YouTube channel passed two million views.  As of the end of March, 2025, viewership had reached over 2.8 million.  Not bad for a small-town, mid-size public library serving a community of about 15,000.

We invite you to peruse MPL's online social media sites.  We hope you find something interesting and helpful.  There's much information available.  Simply by reading this, you are one of our patrons, to whom we pledge our service.
 

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