Tag: Connect

Benson Memorial Library, Libraries, Life, Local History & Genealogy

The Things a Library Can Do For You: “Local woman tracks down biological family”

Justin Hoenke

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Please visit the Titusville Herald website full this full story.

I’ve been sitting on this story for a few months now, but oh how I have wanted to shout it out from the rooftops. When we started our Local History & Genealogy project at the Benson Memorial Library, this is the kind of thing that I wanted us to do but I didn’t know if it would ever happen. Lo and behold, just a few months into our first big year-long push into these services and in through our doors comes Traci Moore, a community member looking to understand her roots. After some conversations with Benson Memorial Library Historian Jess Hilburn, the end result was that Traci found her biological family and got a chance to reconnect with them. Read the rest in the Titusville Herald piece that can be found here….it is a great, positive story that really makes your heart fill up with happiness.

We live in a time where we as librarians have the chance to take public libraries to the next level. We will still be the libraries that we’ve come to know and love, full of books, movies, and discovery, but we now have the chance to level up (to borrow an idea from video games). We are centers where our communities come together to meet, share, and explore life together. The public libraries we have inherited and now lead are the centers of our community. Lead them with a positive frame of mind, an open heart, and a willingness to be everything to your community. You are everything and inside of you is the love that the world needs. Understand that love and then put it out into the world. Positive change will occur on a mass level when we understand the love inside ourselves.

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Benson Memorial Library, Libraries, Social Media

Here’s How To Talk To Your Community On Social Media (Which By The Way, You Should Be Doing)

Justin Hoenke

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First and foremost, if you’re not using social media to connect with your community then you should stop everything right now, set up social media accounts, and spend some time every day connecting with your community. I’m not the first or the last person to say this, and if you need any further inspiration, I recommend checking out David Lee King and all of the great things he has to say about all things social media + libraries.

If you are (and you probably are), I’m sharing the above screenshots as an example of what I think is a very good way to talk to your community using social media. To break down the details of how we do it here at the Benson Memorial Library, read below:

  • We tried Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as our main social media feeds. Facebook by and far worked the best with the community. Instagram gets some likes and enough to update it every once in awhile. Twitter does nothing for our library.
  • We have three (of eight total) staff members who check our Facebook page. One person is in charge of scheduling most of the posts. The other two fill in posts from time to time. All of us will answer questions directed to the library or comment when the library is tagged.
  • One of my daily duties is to quickly browse the local Facebook groups: the ones that talk about local issues, the ones that advertise events, and the buy/sell/trade groups. If I spot something that can be helped by the library, I will respond with a comment, tag the library, and inform one of our staff members to respond to the inquiry. This is how we got the screenshots that you see above.
  • One of our staff members will use their account or the library Facebook account to respond to any comments. We do so in a way that introduces us, who we are, and what we can do. We always leave contact information in our comments so the community member can follow up outside of Facebook if they choose to do so.

What it all boils down to is something very simple: get your library out there where your community gathers (and yes, Social Media is a place where people gather!) and talk to your community. When you do, great things and connections will happen and your library and community will grow stronger because of it!

Life

Something To Think About

Justin Hoenke
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Quote by Judd Apatow from this NYT article

I read this quote in a NYT article yesterday and felt like I had to share it. I think it nicely sums up something that I’ve been trying to articulate for awhile now. It is very easy to get caught up in the internet and all things digital. The internet connects all of us and provides us with a nearly infinite source of entertainment. It is a great place to be! I’ve seen myself and pretty much everyone around me get sucked into it from time to time. This is ok! It is perfectly normal and fine to be pulled to the internet.

At the same time, I believe in balance and the flipside is that we need to remember that our actions on the internet also need to be balanced with our actions in the physical world. I have begun asking myself how I can translate every tweet/share/post that I am a part of on the internet into something else in the physical world. These things don’t have to be big personal acts…they can be as simple as holding the door for another person, saying hello to a stranger, or just simply being kind in any moment.