Social media practices and support in U.S. public libraries and school library media centers

Many U.S. teens spend hours each day communicating with friends via social technologies like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr. To develop a better understanding of the state of library support of teens' social technology practices, we are conducting a national survey of a representative sample of 750 public and 750 school libraries in the United States about their current policies and social media strategies. Preliminary results indicate that public and school libraries' use of social media differ in terms of policy and strategies, and that rather than enabling libraries to harness the power of social networking tools, library policies often serve as use barriers.