1. Slam the Boards! A Model for Marketing Through Action
May 21, 2013
2 p.m. (ET)
Presenter: Bill Pardue

2. UPCOMING RUSA PRESIDENT’S PROGRAM!!
Save the date for RUSA’s President’s Program in Chicago
Title: The Myth and the Reality of the Evolving Patron: The RUSA President’s Program
When: 4-5:30p.m. on Saturday, June 29, 2013
Where: Chicago IL, ALA Annual Conference
Description: Lee Rainie, co-author of the new book “Networked: The
New Social Operating System”, will share the latest data about how
Americans are interacting with information technology and electronic
books.
On Sunday, June 30, from 10:30-11:30a.m., join Rainie and library leaders Emily Ford, DavidLankes and
Marie Radford to discuss how the Pew study data will influence your
library’s future. Join the conversation surrounding this topic on Twitter by using the
hashtag #rusapres13.

3. Slam the Boards! A Model for
Marketing Through Action
Bill Pardue
Arlington Heights Memorial Library
bpardue@ahml.info / @billahml
sponsored by
RSS/MARS Virtual Reference Services Committee

4. Tweeting?
• #slamtheboards
• #ala2013

5. What is “Slam The Boards?”
• Librarians engaging in social Q&A
• Grass-roots participation
• No “central figure”
• No stats (maybe…someday)
• Get beyond the library!
• Promote libraries
• Share with colleagues

6. What’s the point?
• User venues:
– Yahoo Answers
– Cha Cha
– Facebook Questions
– Twitter
– WikiAnswers
– Etc., etc., etc….
– Serious competitors to the
reference desk!

7. What are they asking?

8. Meanwhile, back at the library…
(Chirping)

9. Traditional Reference Stats are
Declining…
http://ahml.info/renovation

10. New Roles are Emerging
• Makerspaces
• Meeting places
• Tech training: classes/appointments

11. But people still have questions:
• “37% of Americans ages 16 and older would ‘very likely’ use
an ‘ask a librarian’ type of service, and another 36% say they
would be ‘somewhat likely’ to do so.
(Library Services in the Digital Age, Pew Internet and American Life
Center)
• “The death of ready reference has been exaggerated.”
(Marie Radford & Lynne Connaway, Seeking Synchronicity: Revelations
and Recommendations for Virtual Reference, OCLC Research)
• Users aren’t aware we do reference!

12. How do we respond?
• Hope it goes away?
• Argue about it? (With
whom?)
• Presume that we’re just
not part of it?
• Actively engage!
• Get proactive!

13. Share with your peers
• http://answerboards.wetpaint.com
• Facebook: “Slam the Boards”
• Twitter: #slamtheboards hashtag

14. Bad reasons not to do it…
• We’re all too busy!
• They’re not our
patrons!
• Almost no one sees it!

15. Make “Slamming” local
• Hyper-local sites
• Newspaper comment threads
• Patch.com
• Monitor twitter
• Google alert for local Y!A
questions

16. Rapid Response to Current Events

17. Slamming’s not always virtual
• Local meetings: Chamber, rotary, committees, etc.
• Chime in—offer assistance!
• Be “on” even when you’re out of the building--a “Library
Ambassador.”
• Out of the box: Library Dude! http://bit.ly/qwssAZ

19. Slamming isn’t always answers
• “Chiming in,” asking questions of your
community (esp. in FB or Twitter)
• Offering assistance
• Promoting: Making the library known
• Helping the user get value from our skills, any
way we can!

20. Attitude Change
• Don’t wait for questions to
come to us.
• Don’t assume that users know
what we do.
• Cast the net wide, take a
proactive approach
• Trumpet what we do and who
we are.
• We might even need to “butt
in” a bit (carefully!).

21. So, you wanna slam?
• You’ll all get an email reminder! (Slam spam?)
• Look over some social Q&A sites
– Yahoo Answers: the big favorite
– Quora: More highly curated.
– WikiAnswers: Harder to attribute, answers modified
– AnswerBag: I’ve played a little…similar to Y!A.
– ChaCha: SMS, you get paid (can it promote us?)
– Learn how to navigate, post answers, the culture, etc.

22. How will you find questions?
• Recommended questions (Yahoo)
• Browse through categories
• Saved searches/RSS for selected terms
(“articles,” “books,” etc.).
• Google alerts for search terms
• Be patient… “real” questions are out there!

23. Answering
• Well-considered/sourced.
• Relate to library service, if you can.
• Geolocate the asker? Promote their library!
• ID as a library advocate. (signature file, etc.)
• Respect the site.

24. Points, etc.
• Best answers are nice.
• Don’t get hung up on it!
• Feel free to vote for your
yourself!

25. Making a connection
• Asker can rate
and respond
• Other readers can
give thumbs up/down

26. Does slamming market libraries?
• Maaaayyyyybeeee…..
• Raises awareness one-to-one.
• Can direct specific users to library
resources.
• Leaves a findable artifact in well-
indexed location.
• Publicize it as a way to show
community engagement/outreach!

27. Testimonial
• As a virtual library service we needed to show our physical customers and also
those who never thought libraries could offer them anything that we [library
staff] are experts at information provision. We also needed to highlight the
brand “library” in all the media digital customers are using--and a large part of
this is social media. You can never assume your customers will find you – you
must find them, wherever they are and prove that libraries should be seen as
the place to provide them with well-resourced answers.
–Joanne Johns, Enquire UK

28. LIS Education
• Loriene Roy, “Engaging LIS Students in
Reference Work Through Online Answer
Boards,” The Reference Librarian 51 (2) (April-
June 2010): 97-107.
• Also Univ. of Maryland,
Univ. of Washington

29. LIS Education (cont’d)

30. Your next steps
• Slam on June 10!
• ALA Session on June 29, 2:30-3:30 p.m.
(Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, Clark 22A-C)
http://ala13.ala.org/node/10999
• Share with the group:
– Successes
– Frustrations
– Insights/concerns

31. Questions?
• I’m always happy to talk, promote, etc.
• bpardue@ahml.info
• @billahml