The Crosswicks Library in New Jersey was seeing low attendance at its teen and youth programs and events. To engage more local teens, the library staff created a Tumblr account to connect with patrons through a social media platform they frequently used. The Tumblr allowed the staff to learn teens' interests and design new programs accordingly. It helped boost attendance in the short term and created an online space for the library in the long term. The staff later planned a Doctor Who themed holiday party that was publicized through the Tumblr and was well-attended.

1. THE CURIOUS CASE
OF TUMBLR
Crosswicks Library’s Social
Media Intergration

2. A LITTLE CROSSWICKS
LIBRARY HISTORY
•Small, two storied building located in Chesterfield
Township, in Crosswicks, N.J.
•Established in 1817 by elected trustees of the
Crosswicks Library Company.
•Made their permanent home in the Union Fire
Company house in 1968.
•When first opened, the library was located in a store
on main street, and only had two librarians
•It has grown exponentially since…

4. CROSSWICKS LIBRARY-CURRENT
DAY
•Crosswicks current population is roughly around
11,000 people
•The library has roughly 10,000 cardholders
• 7,000 adults, and 3,000 children, and 2,000 young
adults
•Made up of mostly Caucasian higher, and lower
middle class families
•Has 13 employees, 4 full time, and 9 part time
•Employees include: Director, Reference Librarian, Head
of Access and Technical Services, 5 Circulation
employees, 3 Teen & Youth Services Librarians, and
one Reference Intern

5. THE PROBLEM
•Unfortunately it has come to the attention of the staff
that the programs and evens being held by the Teen &
Youth Services (T&YS) librarians are often under, or
unattended.
•Attendance records revealed that there is a small core
group of teens, around 5-7 who attended events 2-3
times a month. That attendance was deemed
unacceptable by the Library Director, and the T&YS
librarians were told to up attendance.
•This was caused by old and outdated programs that
they devised for the teen patrons that they service.

6. ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS
•After the teen & youth services librarians, and other staff
members, and librarians realized this, they did some
digging.
•They conducted some internet research and decided to
found that they were falling out of touch with the teen
patrons.
•After evaluating their research they chose to reach out to
teens patrons by creating social media accounts, specifically
a twitter, and Facebook.
•These social media accounts helped increase patron
involvements, yet it did not increase teen patron interaction.

7. THE FINAL SOLUTION
•After conducting further internet research, and some
informal interviews with teen patrons that do regularly attend
events they found a better form of social media that teen
use daily
•The T&YS librarians discovered and decided to create a
Tumblr!

8. TUMBLR?
•Tumblr is a social media website that “lets you effortlessly
share anything.” (n.d., 2014)
•Its was proven to be the best social media for connecting
with teen patrons, due to it’s high teenage user based, as
well as it’s user friendly design and interface.
•Tumblr has become increasing utilized by public library staff
as a way to connect with their users.
•Tumblr has also been allowing public libraries, and
librarians to connect with each other, enabling them to share
ideas, and create dialog.
•Tumblr also costs nothing to join, create and maintain!
“About.” Web blog post. About. Tumblr, n.d. Web. 1 Nov.2014

10. IMPLEMENTATION
•The Tumblr will be created with the help of the few, involved teen patrons,
and will be ran by the T&YS librarians.
•The interests of the involved teen patrons will serve as a base for the
interests and shape of the Tumblr in the beginning.
•The initial creation, and cultivation of the Tumblr should take the library staff
2-3 months at the most.
•Once the T&YS librarians become accustom to looking for, creating and
posting content that is relevant to the interests of their teen patrons, they will
being tailoring events and programs towards those interests, then posting
and sharing those information about those events on all of their social media
outlets, but specifically the Tumblr

11. SHORT TERM IMPACT
•The Tumblr blog will hopefully create an online space where
the T&YS librarians will be able to gain a better understand
of what their teen patrons and interested, and then use that
knowledge to create fun and engaging programs and events
for the teen patrons.
•All in all the Tumblr will have a positive short term impact on
the Crosswicks library.

12. LONG TERM IMPACT
•The long term impact the Tumblr would have would be the
creation of an online space where both teen and adult
patrons can visit, to obtain information about the library, and
also get a feel for what interests, causes, and atmosphere
that the library and it’s staff holds dear.

13. DOCTOR WHO THEMED
PARTY!
•2-3 months into the creation of the Crosswick’s Library’s
Tumblr, the staff decides it would be a great time to throw a
Doctor Who themed holiday party!
•The holidays are around the corner, and according to the
Tumblr dashboard, and the posts of their teenaged
followers, the Y&TS librarians decided that based on those
posts, to make the holiday party Doctor Who themed.
•They plan the part and begin posting about it to the Tumblr
months in advance. They cross post the flyers, and
information to both the twitter, and Facebook, as well as
posting the flyers around town.
•The party is a hit and is attended by 20-25 kids, whom they
surveyed at the end. The survey revealed that a majority of