Artist, graphic designer, & tech consultant in Nelson County, VA
Author:lemsy
John LeMasney (lemsy) is an artist, graphic designer, and technology creative. He is located in beautiful Nelson County, VA, but works remotely with ease. Contact him at: lemasney@gmail.com to discuss your next creative project.
December 20, 2009 (Photo credit: HeatherBradleyPhotography)
Have trouble with your car.
Have a friend stop by the grocery and pick you up some groceries. Ask them to pick up soup, fruit, and cough medicine.
Have them pick you up to take you to your first client appointment of the day.
Understand that your friend can not possibly drive you around all day, and resort to walking to each of your other appointments or using public transit where available.
Underestimate the heat of the new spring day and the distance between meeting places, by miles.
On your walk to meeting four, almost pass out.
Come across the most beautiful park bench you have ever seen, a simple affair of wood and metal.
Sit down, rest yourself, and sit for a moment. Re-catch your focus.
Suddenly remember that there might be ready-to-eat food in bag two.
Find orange, unwrap it, and bite into its red, seedless, juicy flesh until it’s gone. Walk on.
Please visit part 1, part 2 and part 3 to read the rest of the chapter so far.
How does one use Pinterest?
fig 07 – architecture search results
Searching – the search engine in Pinterest is a fantastic starting point to help build a board. If you are looking to develop conversations about your vast bicycling historical artifacts collection, maybe start with a search on vintage bicycles. By searching on topics, keywords, and tags from your ILS collection in Pinterest, you’ll be able to find pinners with like minds, boards related to your topics, individual pins that speak to your collection, and sources to gather more visual information for new pins.
Research – Once you add a pin and it is part of your curation in a board, the pin gives you other resources such as the person who pinned it (who may be a source of other related pins and worth following), other pins from the domain where it was pinned from (which you can bookmark in your browser), and other boards containing the pin (which may be existing collections similar to the one you are building). Finding like-minded pinners and organizations on Pinterest is a large part of the power of Pinterest as a social network. You connect, share, and learn through imagery.
Discussions – the point of social media is to engage, and discussion is a great way to do that. Great pins spark great discussions, and can be a place for you to develop deeper or different relationships with real or virtual patrons. If you are followed by and follow patrons on Pinterest, you may even get to the point where you share pins individually between them and the library, which strengthens that relationship, but also potentially grows the understanding of your brand and theirs.
Collaboration – Pinterest makes it easy to invite people to curate together. If you’ve ever wanted a low-threshold way to bring staff together around a topic, invite patrons to develop programming in a low-risk way, or invite an untapped demographic to engage with your library, Pinterest’s group boards may be a great way to do that. Create a board about Children’s Services, Emerging Technologies, Technology Programming, Learning Resources, or other topics to begin to show your interest in those topics.
Curation – Pinterest is a platform for curation, collection, organization, citation, classification, and review. That should all make perfect sense to a librarian. You can use Pinterest as a second catalog, but one that catalogs everything that your library does and cares about, not just the assets.
fig 07.5 – more from lemasney.com
Campaigns and Programming – if the main way that you are marketing your events and programming is via paper fliers inside your library, consider just pinning those fliers (in digital form) to a programming board or boards as a way of seeing if it increases awareness and participation. If discussions, repins, likes, and follows happen, that would be great too.
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Please take a look at part 1 and part 2 of this serial chapter on Pinterest as well.
Who is using Pinterest?
fig 06 – lemasney 01
According to a Pew study on social media user demographics in 2013, Pinterest is 5 times as likely to be used by females as males. 15% of all Internet users used Pinterest. The typical Pinterest user is white and well-educated. The system was equally popular amongst users in the 18-29 and 30-49 age groups, both making up about 19% of users each. ) As a result, you may be able to engage more successfully with this demographic using Pinterest than other social media platforms, as other systems have different demographics. I personally feel that if more diverse groups could see other ways that the system can be used that the demographic would change dramatically. I do not feel particularly feminine, have no interest in flower arrangements, and am not getting married anytime soon. Despite this, I feel like I have a great visual thinking and sharing tool in Pinterest.
What are some examples of libraries who are making good use of Pinterest?
New York Public Library Art and Picture Collection
With pins that lead to its blogs, others that focus on its elaborate art collections and media, and some that create a playlist of music and other media to check out, this amazing library shares and extends its culture using Pinterest.
UNLV Architecture Studies Library
This library takes its intense focus on the very visual topic of architecture and offers a feast of images related to the topic, organized in sensible ways. With boards that focus on things like landscape, tiny spaces, bridges, furniture, and restaurants, it quickly makes you aware of the limitless ways in which we can begin to think about architecture.
American Libraries Magazine – ALA
With boards that explore the great libraries of the world, others that focus on ALA’s presidents, and some that request that you engage in a discussion (Ask ALA), this is a great example of how larger umbrella organizations related to libraries can celebrate and incorporate all libraries while cheering themselves on.
What makes Pinterest a preferable social network for organizations such as libraries to embrace?
Pinterest is a social network (a place where people come together to connect) which focuses on visual content, such as pictures, graphics, diagrams, logos, videos, animations and other imagery. In fact, without an image or a video, you can not post to Pinterest. This sets it apart from other social networks, like Facebook, where a posting can be text-based.
fig 04 – princeton public library
Libraries can make use of this visually oriented service to engage patrons and other stakeholders differently than they can in person, on other social networks, or through other communication methods. Because of the visual focus of the system, Pinterest can become a visual catalog for browsing departments, a magazine of the latest program offerings, or an archive of events and milestones. Used effectively, following guidelines and examples below, you may be able to entice an otherwise untapped audience through visual means.
What is the social networking benefit of Pinterest?
fig 05 notifications
Libraries may wonder how Pinterest is of value comparative to other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Pinterest is useful from a social marketing perspective in several ways. Many of its users consider it addictive, and spend hours using the system each week. As users click on one interesting item, they are shown other related items of similar interest. They can collect the most interesting items they find into ‘boards’, essentially making them curators and explorers of valuable content. People can then find, share, and follow those pins and boards, creating a sort of community of common interest. When users in the system find other users with similar tastes, they can follow those users and be exposed to more interesting, valuable, curated content. In the case of libraries or librarians as users, one can connect with patrons, be exposed to library trends by following other interesting libraries, follow publishers and media producers who share content that they find to be of value to their patrons, staff and other stakeholders. In particular, because Pinterest is a purely visual sharing system (as stated above, to create a pin, you must upload or find an image, graphic, photo or video,) it allows a user to very quickly assess if they are in philosophical, ideological, or simply visual alignment with another Pinterest user. Compare this to other systems, where you might have to assess alignment by reading through a few (or many more) tweets or status updates, which can be time-consuming and analytical. With Pinterest, a patron can look at a library’s page of pins or boards of another user and judge ideological alignment much quicker, sometimes in seconds. When libraries make sensible, brand related choices about their pins and boards in Pinterest, it can be incredibly powerful as a community building tool.
The following posts were written and proposed as a book chapter on Pinterest for Libraries, but the chapter was not accepted. Sad, except that now it means that I have some content to share publicly with you! Over the next few days, I’ll be publishing the chapter as a series of posts.
John LeMasney of LeMasney Technology and Design Consulting will discuss Pinterest, a visual social bookmarking system that is often dismissed as simply a place for wedding photos and pictures of vegetarian recipes. Pinterest is a way to collect, curate, share and discuss photos and videos of any kind, and this article will discuss 10 ways you can use it to engage patrons and other stakeholders in the visual brand, items, and topics at libraries. You can increase the visibility of your programs, and give people new ways to click through to discover and borrow your assets.
A Pinterest glossary
fig 01 – lemasney on Pinterest
I thought that it would be useful to start with a short glossary of terms related to Pinterest for the uninitiated. There is a culture to Pinterest, and with any good culture comes a kind of vocabulary.
Pin – A pin is a single shared image or video on Pinterest. A pin consists of a digital image or video, an optional link to the original site, and a description for the pin, up to 500 characters long. Great pins are attractive regardless of their context, but their context, history, and source should be present. Think of a pin as a way to inform people of information literacy, scholarship, and ideological respect in addition to the basic idea of the pin itself. Libraries can use pins to share elements of their organizational brand: what makes them unique as a library.
Pinning – Pinning is the act of sharing a pin on Pinterest. Pinning can be done exceptionally well or rather lazily. Pinners who care will add metadata, a reasonable description, links back to source sites, and encourage discussion. Pinners who are just passing the time will put up a single word description, not consider the link or source, and not respond to discussions, repins, and other cultural niceties. A library pinterest effort might include an emerging technologies librarian as the sole pinner, but there is a potential for richness when administrators, staff, and patrons are all invited to pin.
fig 02 – also pinned to
Repin – A repin is the act of taking a pin that already exists on Pinterest and sharing it on one of your own boards, effectively giving it a vote of confidence and admiration. Repinning is a kind of moral engine on Pinterest, helping people’s pins to reach larger and larger audiences. When libraries repin pins, they show that they are looking at other people’s pins, making a decision about their alignment with that person, and inviting them to check out the library’s pins. Repins are important in building a community.
fig 03 – the pin it button
Pinmarklet – A combination of the words Pinterest and Bookmarklet, the Pinmarklet is a javascript button that you copy to your bookmarks bar and click whenever you are on a site where you find something worth sharing. It greatly simplifies the pinning process compared to the “share pin” feature on the site itself. Libraries who use pinterest should consider adding the pinmarklet to staff computer images, so that they are encouraged to pin library related pins.
Comment – each pin on Pinterest has the ability for anyone to comment. By commenting, you effectively notify the pinner of your interest in the content, and give them the opportunity to begin a conversation with you. One can argue that the very point of social media in any form is to begin a discussion. If you pin a new acquisition and have it link through to your ILS, that’s an invitation to borrow that item. If you start a discussion to talk about why the media was acquired for your collection, you engage not only patrons and potential patrons, but also give the opportunity for a better understanding of why your library makes the choices it does.
Board – A board is the curation space on Pinterest, where you add, share, comment, and collaborate on pins. Your boards for your library should be essentially a visual version of your catalog, but also a business card, a note of thanks, a reminder of programming, and an insight into what your library really is, behind the buildings, people, and things in it.
Shared board – Boards can be co-curated by 2, 10, 100 or more pinners. You can invite other pinners that share the common interest of the board. The board’s creator may remove pinners at any time, or pinners can remove themselves. For libraries, shared boards are great opportunities. You could have a “patrons’ picks” board, in which only patrons post. You might carry a theme for the month, like “flying” or “government” and make boards that invite experts amongst your staff and patronage in those topics to pin what they know.
Follow – Pinners can follow boards that they like, with the key benefit being that they see new pins from those boards prioritized on their homepage. Pinners can choose to follow another pinners individual boards, or can follow the pinner wholesale. One can unfollow tiresome boards at any time. It is essential that you follow people with the library account. Following shows that you are not just interested in yourself, and also makes your home page far more interesting. When you follow people whose pins are related to yours, you see more of those kinds of pins when you open Pinterest.
Private Board – One innovation that Pinterest implemented in response to users was the ability to pin to a private board, which can also be a shared (collaborative) board. Their key example in explaining the function was to do party planning without the party’s purpose knowing about it, but many others cited that the prurient or otherwise controversial nature of some pins makes one less likely to repin them if others are watching. Private boards solve that issue. As a library, you might have private planning boards for upcoming events where you can collect pins related to the idea. Then when it is time to advertise the event, you can make the board public.
Like – One may like a pin rather than repin it, which adds it to a liked list, a kind of board in itself. Liked pins have all of the function and purpose of a pin or repin, but are useful especially in cases where the pin does not easily fit into your existing boards. You might like things that you do not necessarily want to associate with your library directly, e.g. an academic science library might want their boards to focus on science topics, but they might also ‘like’ pins about food. If the food is science related, even better.
Pinner – A user on the Pinterest system; one who pins. In creating an account for a Library, it is better if your personal Pinterest account is not used, so that you can separate your personal brand from the library brand. In fact, it is better to have a Library as a business account in Pinterest, so that you can get the added benefits of that mode (below).
Certified users and business accounts – you can associate yourself with a particular URL by going through an authentication process that allows you to gain statistical insights about pins from your web site. Libraries on Pinterest should consider this process since they may want to know if people are clicking on pins to visit their ILS for instance. Polaris, amongst other social media aware cataloging systems, allow for the pinning of assets by patrons right from the catalog if enabled.
I’m not one to be especially paranoid, generally speaking. In fact, I tend to think of myself as generally stable, pragmatic, and realistic. I go on what I sense. However, recently, I began thinking deeply about all the trails we are leaving, especially my own, and how easy it is to know the deeper part, the private part, of who I am, easily.
I am okay with this. After all, openness is part of my brand. However, if I had a camera on me, broadcasting everything I do and say, it would be difficult to watch sometimes. I’m flawed, I have an ego, I make mistakes, and I try my best to improve myself. I fail, often, and I am okay with that, but also, I like to think that my worst moments of anger or failure would be seen in the larger context of the good I try to do in the world.
I guess what I am trying to say is that we do have the equivalent of cameras on us all the time. I read the dystopian trilogy (Zamyatin’s We, Orwell’s 1984, and Huxley’s Brave New World) as a young man, and it had a great effect on me. I accepted that society has a big-brotherly effect on us, and I try to do my best to satisfy their needs, while being myself to the degree that anyone can within a society. I also try to resist the Soma of this world, embrace emotion in the face of a societal need for me to be less sensitive, and generally respect, but not unequivocally align with authoritative mandates.
So consider the reality of the ways in which we are tracked and followed, and know that those records and details might be used against you at some time in the future. If you know it, you can make better decisions in light of it, and avoid the potential issue with reasoning.
1. At any given time, no matter where you are, there is likely a reporting sensor that knows that you are there. Your phone is an example, but so are security cameras, fitbits, and computers.
2. The data stream of each of these devices is logged in some way, some more overtly, and others more overtly. I can look at the history of my browsing, steps, music listening, book reading, meetings, messages, and photos and video going back over 10 years. There are no gaps.
3. There is a technological movement being presented quite reasonably in the form of Robert Scoble’s Age of Context that focuses on Big Data (e.g. credit cards), Social Data (e.g. Facebook), the Internet of Things (e.g. tweeting fridges), and personal data logging (e.g. fitbit).
For more on this topic, please take a look at these slides that I prepared for a talk on sensors, personal data, and context.
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