5 Ways to Use Pinterest in Your Library

Pinterest is a digital pinboard application which started just last year but has quickly become one of the top 10 most trafficked social networking websites according to Hitwise. During the second week in December the website had over 11 million visitors. This is pretty impressive considering that the site is still in the invite-only stage.

Pinterest’s inspiration boards have a lot of potential for libraries and other organizations for creating visual displays of resources and services. All of Pinterest’s boards and posts can be shared on Facebook and Twitter. Here are some ideas for how you can make the most of this popular social network for your library:

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1.) Create Recommended Book Boards

Pinterest is a great visual tool which can help you draw in your readers, so why not set up boards of book covers to engage your patrons. Create separate boards for different book categories such as: fiction, non-fiction, young adult fiction, science fiction, horror, travel, most popular, recommended, etc.

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2.) Highlight Library Staff

Use Pinterest’s photo boards to spotlight your friendly and helpful library staff. Make your librarians more approachable by putting up a picture of them helping patrons in the library along with a brief bio about them.

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3.) Spread the Word About Author Talks

If you’ve got an upcoming author talk you might create a pinboard with information about that author such as the author’s book cover(s), photos of the author, links to interviews, biographical information. Or you may just have a “What’s New” or “Events” page onto which you pin their book cover.

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4.) Create Patron Contributed Boards

A great social feature of Pinterest is the ability to allow others to contribute to your boards. I can think of a million boards you may want to ask patrons to contribute to such as; photos of patrons in your library, covers of their favorite books, book covers of titles they recommend – or would like you to purchase, etc.

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5.) Have a Pinterest Board Contest

Encourage patrons to create their own boards for summer reading programs, pins of books they want to check out, research or homework topics, etc. Have them each “follow” the library’s Pinterest profile in order to enter and award the best board a prize.

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