Disconnecting from social media: A tale of an engineering library

Not wanting to miss the trend of academic STEM libraries joining social media, in 2014 the Engineering & Computer Science Library at the University of Toronto started a Twitter account. A large time investment was used to create and maintain our account and at first glace our ‘engagement’ metrics showed a healthy growing social media presence. However, when we did a deeper analysis on who our followers were and ruminated on what actual value Twitter ‘engagement’ brought to our library the return-on-investment was actually low. Factoring in the darker side of social media and some students’ lack of understanding of personal data use online, we made the difficult decision to deactivate our account. Many years later, the weekly hours spent maintaining Twitter have been put towards our thriving outreach program where we engage with students on a much deeper level.