One of the projects for this internship is the development of a Special Collections Blog for Irwin Library. In my conversations with my mentor, it became clear that Butler’s Special Collections contains numerous fascinating and significant items that very few people on Butler’s campus and the in the larger community know about.

We discussed the current social media program for Irwin Library and the purpose and goals for social media. I have read a great deal lately about the uses and impact of social media for academic libraries in the professional literature, as well as commentary by various academics in blogs such as this one.

The main goal for this blog is to raise awareness of the Special Collections at Butler University. The hope is that the blog will drive interest and use of the collections. The blog will be maintained by special collections staff, but guest posts will be solicited from various Butler faculty and potentially students who use the collections. Those who use the collections will have the opportunity to write posts discussing items in the collection that they have used in their research and teaching.

This approach will ensure that the blog gains a wider audience, is supported within the university, and relieves the special collections librarian and staff from the burden of writing each post–an important consideration in such a small shop that already has so many responsibilities.

One of the better examples of this approach may be found at Trinity College’s Watkinson Library in Hartford, Connecticut. The “Bibliophile’s Lair” combines images, text, and video to engage a wide audience.