The Robinson Library has used Facebook for some guerrilla marketing-type promotion of its revised opening hours.
Stuart Bradley, the Robinson Library's Marketing and Communications Project Officer.
Searching for 'Robinson Library' on Facebook found a student-run page petitioning for 24hour library opening. As an unofficial (non-University) petition it was only by chance that a member of Library staff found it, suggesting there was an even smaller chance the University Librarian would happen upon it. Stuart then sent a Facebook message to the administrator of the petition page, explaining that he worked for the Library, and asking to be added to the petition page as an administrator. This meant he could post messages to promote the Library's extended opening hours and include hyperlinks to the official Robinson Library pages about this.
The Facebook petition was student-led but separate from channels of communication recognised by the University. These students were expressing their dissatisfaction in a forum that mattered to them, but in a forum with little chance of bringing about the aim of the petition. For a member of staff from the Library to find this petition and then make a connection with the group of students involved was a means of both reaching out to these students through their chosen method of communication and linking them to the Library's promotion of extended opening hours. Rather than ignoring the page, or setting up a University-sanctioned page to rival it, asking to become involved in students' own activity gave the Library access to these students' concerns and aimed to show these students that the Library was keen to listen to them.
Stuart said he had received grateful Facebook messages from students involved in the petition page, so yes. But this should come with a warning that perhaps not all groups of students would be so receptive, and that searching for Facebook pages might also find 'tributes' to most- and least-favoured lecturers.
Guerrillas in the Robinson Library
Student Engagement
-
Other
Other
-
In response to issues