#gathercreateshare: How Research Libraries Use Pinterest

Abstract

This work investigates social curating activities on the website Pinterest and relates them to the librarian's traditional role of curating information. Pinterest is a social curation site that combines features of gathering, creating, and sharing with the information management characteristics of successful data curation. Libraries have begun to think about pushing services into social networking sites and adding social networking features to their own services. This study evaluates the webpages of Association of Research Libraries member libraries for presence and use of Pinterest, and suggests ways research and academic libraries can use Pinterest to support their patrons.

KEYWORDS:

• Pinterest
• social curation
• curation
• social media
• Web 2.0
• information literacy
• academic libraries

Acknowledgments

Danielle P. De Jager-Loftus and Abby Moore

Notes

1. An example of an item of interest in this study includes the fact that in nine of the libraries that did not have a Pinterest presence, a site search for “Pinterest” on the library's website produced links to their LibGuides that contained information about Pinterest, or provided links to others’ Pinterest pinboards. Also, the University of Connecticut's University Libraries created a LibGuide for the purpose of instructing its librarians on how to use Pinterest (http://classguides.lib.uconn.edu/Pinterest).