Using Social Media to Promote International Collaboration

This paper explores the use of social media or Web 2.0 services for an international collaborative project. Participants in this collaboration used free and inexpensive social media tools to communicate and work together. This case study presents a model for using inexpensive social media tools to forge new partnerships among academic libraries. Academic libraries can now tap the expertise of fellow librarians in other countries and explore new cultures to improve and extend their services without the huge financial cost once attributed to international collaboration.

questions, share resources and knowledge, and enhance cultural understanding" (Negley, 2012).The service allows librarians to connect anonymously in a simple, easy-to-use, question-and-answer interface."Since its inception, HelpALibrarian has connected librarians from Massachusetts to Portugal, Malta to Egypt, Manila to Athens, and more" (Negley, 2012).
A prime example of Gazan's "collaborative workspace" may be found on the Facebook group page, Library Related People.According to Aaron Tay (2012), creator of the group, Librarians today are a fortunate bunch; we trade ideas and advice from librarians thousands of miles away as easily as from someone in the same city using the Internet and social media.As a result, new and good ideas flow very quickly these days.All it takes is one Librarian to tweet or post on a mailing list, say a script he came up with that allows you to customize Summon, and within days, libraries around the world would have copied this innovation (2012, para.1).
Tay pioneered a means for librarians to engage in micro-collaborations on a worldwide basis using social media.Currently the group has over 1,200 members representing libraries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
Much of the popularity of Library Related People stems from Tay's own social capital.He is a well-known author, speaker, and blogger.His Musings about Librarianship blog (musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com) is well regarded in the academic library community.It was likely one of the many factors that led to his being named a Library Journal "Mover and Shaker" in 2011.
Arising from Library Related People was an experiment in the use of social media for higher education.This stretched the definition of micro-collaboration into a new realm, that of international mentoring.Dr. Myungdae Cho, then lecturing at Sung Kyun Kwan University in Seoul, Republic of Korea, wanted to demonstrate to students in his Information Sociology course the power of social media.In the summer of 2010, he called on his Facebook-using friends, including select members of the Library Related People group, to provide mentoring services for his students.
The mentors, all successful professionals in the information services field, were to interact with the students, addressing topics assigned by Dr. Cho.Members of this mentoring group were from all parts of the globe.They would provide 24-hour support and reference.According to Reed (2011), students could access the mentors' expertise for both academic and social interaction.
During the course that spanned the 2010-2011 academic year, the students and their mentors experienced the potential of social media for both short-term exchanges and long-term commitments to a project.For the students who wanted or needed to talk to a mentor, one was usually available throughout the day.Late night, Korea time, chat sessions were easy enough for mentors living on the East Coast of the United States.It was not unusual for the mentors in the USA to be online discussing class-related topics during lunch, while the students in Seoul were up studying into the early morning hours.

Developing the Chinese History and Culture LibGuide: A Case Study
Potential collaborations among the mentors of Dr. Cho's Information Sociology group were discussed, but finding common ground among the mentors was difficult.The group was diverse both geographically and professionally.While the participants were willing, finding the proper way to collaborate was problematic.
However, two of the mentors, Mark Puterbaugh of Eastern University Libraries in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, USA, and Hua Sun of Shandong University of the Arts in Jinan, Shandong Province, People's Republic of China (PRC), continued their discussions until a project was born: The Chinese History and Culture LibGuide (libguides.eastern.edu/china)(see Figure 1).Plans began between Sun and Puterbaugh during the summer of 2011.Sun and Puterbaugh sought to develop something substantial, an informational tool that would be used by faculty and students at both institutions.Puterbaugh first proposed a website dedicated to Chinese art.Sun was grateful for the suggestion of a topic so very familiar to her.She countered with a proposal to develop something with more breadth.Looking through Eastern University's online resources, Sun suggested creating a LibGuide.This would become a tool for Eastern University's community and allow Sun's school to experience a new service.
Librarians at Shandong had no experience with this cloud-based content management system.
LibGuides is a mainstay tool for many libraries.The service has social media components that allow content to be built in a collaborative manner.With the aid of Eastern University's LibGuides' administrator, Andrea Reed, a site was established within Eastern's platform.Reed joined Sun and Puterbaugh for the Skype sessions to ease the participants into working with the LibGuides' collaborative tools.
Agreeing on a project was an important first step.The layout of the LibGuide would be the next step.Sun, due to her expertise with the subject matter, took the lead.Tabs were created for History, Chinese Philosophy, Art, Dance, Music, Language, Literature, Traditional Medicine, and Food.Sun added important information regarding books and audio and visual media that she felt were of high importance.She also included a link to an important database that she had helped bring online, The Folk Paper-Cut Picture Library.
As the work progressed through the winter of 2012 to the point of having a viable product, the directors from the two libraries exchanged letters authorizing Sun and Puterbaugh to set aside work hours for the project.
Additionally, the agreement allowed for the collaborators to act as contacts for faculty and students at both institutions interested in utilizing the LibGuide.With the exchange of letters, the library directors sanctioned the project that had started as a personal exploration.

Benefits of Collaboration
Sun and Puterbaugh believed that an international collaboration, whose participants viewed their project from different perspectives, would create a richer reference tool.In this belief, they followed Abramo, D'Angelo, and Solazzi (2011), who wrote that international collaborations offer greater results due to the "heterogeneity of resources (both intellectual and other)" (p.205).The dissimilarities in language, culture, and general outlook provide a richer work relationship.It seemed reasonable to assume that in international collaborations, precisely because of the differences between partners, the expected results would be more meaningful.Sun and Puterbaugh agree with De Dreu and West ( 2001) whose studies of group creativity confirmed that it is diversity rather than conformity that leads to more innovative and higher quality results.
The participants wanted to demonstrate the benefits of pursuing international collaboration using social media.Sun and Puterbaugh expected that the use of social media would lower the transaction costs for international collaboration.They asked themselves if the tools offered by social media could be implemented successfully enough to overcome the barriers of long distance travel and eliminate the need for face-to-face meetings that would typically be necessary for such a project.Would these free-to-use and low-cost tools prove adequate for the two participants to create a meaningful product at the end of the collaborative transaction?This was a challenge noted by Landry & Amara (1998) who observed that international collaborations involve greater transaction costs: negotiating and mediating the objectives, choosing methodologies, dealing with results, managing logistics for communications, and managing gatherings and face-to-face meetings.They concluded that successful international collaborations called for a greater commitment of resources than domestic collaborations.The Challenges Following Stueart's (1997) discussion of the challenges of international efforts, Sun and Puterbaugh selected four areas that the project would address: 1. Physical Distance.

Physical Distance
Shandong University of Arts and Eastern University are two very different institutions.While the institutions have a great deal of information about themselves on their campus websites, the inability to physically connect with the other's campus presented a difficulty.The collaborators could not walk the campus, interact with students, and get the "feel" of the other's institution.The two libraries, while both academic, serve institutions with diverse missions.Eastern University is a small liberal arts school associated with the American Baptist Convention with no fine arts and design program.Shandong University of Arts is a school dedicated to the fine and performing arts.
The distance between the two libraries is approximately 7,000 miles.Without a physical connection, common ground was difficult to identify at first.Geographic separation is a significant obstacle.Compounding the issue of distance was a time difference of 12 hours between the two schools.By way of illustration, when it is 2 a.m. in eastern China, it is 2 p.m. in the eastern United States.Despite the physical distance and time difference, the use of social media-particularly Skype, a video conferencing tool, and Windows Live Messenger, a text messaging service-helped to mediate the dialogue between the two participants and create a close connection.Weekly Skype sessions were arranged, usually lasting 2 hours.Within the first eight months, over one hundred hours were logged using Skype.Skype-to-Skype calls were free of charge, making personal interaction between Sun and Puterbaugh economical.
During this time, the collaborators not only grew to know each other better on a personal level, they also learned of the work performed at the corresponding institutions.This learning process included introductions to other staff members and views of office life.Additionally, with the time difference so great, each was able to see a little of the other's home life.The use of Skype broke down many of the barriers of time and distance and helped the project participants develop a personal rapport.
During the Skype sessions, it was discovered that both universities have a global perspective.Eastern The importance of communicating on a regular basis cannot be overestimated.Johnson (2009) points out that one of the key deterrents to a successful collaboration between international partners is a lack of confidence in the other.However, with clear lines of communication established through the use of free and open tools that facilitated the development of both a professional and personal relationship, trust was a non-issue in this project.
Physical distance, which once kept international partners apart for long periods of time, working silently until the next phone call or physical meeting, need no longer be an obstacle for global collaborators.
When considering the challenges posed by physical distance, the actual monetary costs of communicating by conventional means, including travel and lost working hours during travel, need to be calculated.While using social media for collaboration does not reduce the monetary costs of the actual working time spent on a project, its use may eliminate the traditional costs of travel and communication that have hampered international collaboration in the past.

Technological Variations
With the prevalence of the Internet as a medium for communication, Stueart's (1997) barrier regarding disparities in technology may no longer appear to be a great obstacle.While working with colleagues in emerging nations, where access to the Internet is limited or non-existent, this is a formidable obstacle.In wealthier nations like the PRC and the USA, differences in technology are not a significant issue.However, the ability to access the same social media services useful for collaboration may pose a challenge.
The initial contact between Sun and Puterbaugh began in Facebook.However, over time, access to this site within the PRC became problematic.Hempel (2012) writes that while Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced a strategy to enter the Chinese market, it has become progressively more difficult for Chinese users to access Facebook.In limiting access to outside social sites, the PRC has nurtured its own social media industry, allowing it to grow and strengthen its market position.In the absence of Facebook, two of China's social sites that have developed "have impressive chunks of market share: Renren (154 million users) and Sina Weibo (300 million users)" (Strauss, 2012).
For an international collaboration, which began in Facebook, this became a major obstacle to overcome.
Neither Renren, a Facebook-like service, or Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like service, have an English-language interface.
Alternative forms of communication had to be adopted.
Other English-language social sites were very useful.The professional networking site LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)was available in the PRC and in the USA.Likewise, Academia.edu(www.academia.edu),a networking site for researchers, proved of some use during the collaboration.palrap.orgemphasized here is the multitude of tools from which to choose.There is no need to rely on a single tool.Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Google+, Skype, and many other tools and resources provide a plethora of features that can facilitate international collaboration.There are free tools to meet every type of collaborative need.
Sun and Puterbaugh discovered as a best practice never to rely on a single tool.Free services and network connections have their limitations.Relying on one service is unnecessary and potentially detrimental to an international project.Services may discontinue or become inaccessible.It is important to be prepared and search out the best tools to use and possible alternatives.Understanding the risks of using freely available social media tools for collaboration should make current and future collaborations work more smoothly.

Conclusion
The Chinese History and Culture site (libguides.eastern.edu/china)continues to develop.Although residing on an Eastern University server, it clearly promotes the contribution of its partner, Shandong University of Arts.The LibGuide is now a multilevel tool for researchers.It contains informational, bibliographical, and multimedia resources for those interested in the subject matter.During the first eight months of development, the site received over 1,000 page views.Sun and Puterbaugh plan continued expansion, including interactive finding aids for those who want to explore this topic more fully.
Social media sites and tools are ubiquitous.The technology has widened the channels of communication and promoted the possibility of international engagement and collaboration.The micro-collaboration of Sun and Puterbaugh is just the beginning of the potential benefits available to the two parent institutions, their libraries, and librarianship in general.Social media allows the individual players, librarians at various institutions, to work together to create something larger than either could create alone.Langeland (2005) noted that the theme from the 2004 Helsinki City Library Seminar was "Small is beautiful-networking makes us strong" (p.148).Social media provides the tools to communicate across national boundaries.This ability makes individual librarians stronger as they share information and knowledge with others from around the world.
Notes 1 Correspondence about this article should be addressed to Mark Puterbaugh, mputerba@eastern.edu 2 Portions of this paper were presented at emtacl12 (Emerging Technologies in Academic Libraries), Trondheim, Norway, October 2, 2012.

Pennsylvania
Libraries: Research & Practice Using Social Media to Promote International Collaboration palrap.orgDue to their experience with Dr. Cho, working together seemed natural.By the end of fall 2011, implementation of the project had begun.

Figure 1 Chinese
Figure 1 Chinese History and Culture LibGuide

University' s
School of International Leadership Development (SILD) has been a mainstay of the university's curriculum.Eastern's English as a Second Language (ESL) programs reach out to many Asian countries, including the PRC.The school in Shandong, dedicated to the arts, also projects a global vision.The faculty, students, and alumni from the university teach and perform throughout the world.Through persistence in communication and understanding each other's perspective-and using the communication tools Skype, Live Messenger, Facebook, and e-mail-a working plan developed.During the project, a variety of social media tools were tested for both synchronous and asynchronous communication.Skype and Windows Live Messenger were the mainstays for real-time communication.The barrier of physical distance was overcome not only by the tools at hand but also by the determination of the participants.It is important in this type of collaboration that the lines of communication be well established.Without consistent Pennsylvania Libraries: Research & Practice Using Social Media to Promote International Collaboration palrap.orgpatterns of information sharing, misunderstandings can easily occur.Both participants were dedicated to their Skype meetings and consistently exchanged reports via email and chat. Figure2).
Figure 2 Presentation at emtacl12, Trondheim, Norway, October 2, 2012, with Mark Puterbaugh on site and Hua Sun using Skype from China.Photograph by Nils Kristian Th.Eikeland/NTNU.