Growing Your Library Career with Social Media. By Daniella Smith. Cambridge: Chandos, 2018. 198 p. Paper $79.95 (ISBN 978-0-0810-2411-9). Ebook Available (978-1-4408-5143-8), call for pricing.

Social media remains a very important element in our daily lives, regardless of what level we may interact with it. Daniella Smith’s book provides an overview of how social media influences our professional lives and the long lasting effect it may have. The book provides general examinations of social media’s functionality and specific impacts it has on library career development. It covers a wide array of social media tools across various platforms. It also contains interviews highlighting practical examples of how our peers engage with social media to highlight or promote their library careers. The book contains 10 chapters and 10 appendixes. With the exception of the last chapter, each chapter has a challenge section, providing actionable items that we can use in developing our social media skills.

The first few chapters provide the reader with a background of how social media interacts with our society as a whole and libraries specifically. Chapter 3 focuses on personal branding and using social media for career development. Chapter 4 covers social media sites centered on career development, such as Linkedin. Chapter 5 centers on tools that interact and automate your social media presence, such as RSS feeds and HootSuite. One particular tool, called “If This Then That,” is highly useful for automating engagement with social media.

Chapter 6 offers helpful pointers in understanding how copyright interacts with social media and protecting your personal branding. Chapter 7 focuses on infographics and their use in social media. The chapter has a great section providing sites that allow you to create various graphics and charts. While chapter 8 focuses on safety and privacy, chapter 9 covers blogging and the use of WordPress. While relatively short, chapter 9 does offer quick and concise instructions for writing your first blog post. Chapter 10 is a summation of how one would use the information provided in this book and covers being professional online.

The appendixes feature various useful content. For example, the first appendix has a listing of statistical websites, used for enhancing information that you would like to display, such as on an infographic. The second appendix lists websites that host pictures or graphics for posting on social media. Other appendixes include lists social media sites and tools, library social media pages, library blogs, and librarians to follow on Twitter.

The book not only provides you with social media tools and resources, but also helpful advice on what you should do to be successful in promoting your library career online. As with any book focusing on specific technology, it can quickly become outdated. However, this book can be a long-term resource helping to navigate social media and establish best practices in promoting one’s library career. Highly recommended.—Hector Escobar, Director of Education and Information Delivery, University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio