Boston Globe: “‘LibraryTok’ Flips the Script on Public Libraries and Their Relevance to Gen Z”

From The Boston Globe:

Here in Boston, Lisa Pollack, chief of communications and strategy at the Boston Public Library, told the Globe that her staff is especially focused on leveraging Instagram Reels, which have seen “exponential success.” The main Instagram account, which has over 54,000 followers, is full of short, informative videos, though they tend to be more subdued than their Milwaukee counterparts.

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From Watsonville, Calif., to Pima County, Ariz., and Chesterfield, N.H., library staffs are getting creative online, gussying up geek humor for the cool kids of the internet. Cincinnati social media specialist Paul Wellington recently told TODAY.com that libraries “have evolved into the 21st century.” And the internet is rapt: The hashtags #librarytok, #librarytiktok, and #librariansoftiktok have together accumulated over a billion views on TikTok.

But few accounts have reached the star status of the MPL [Milwaukee Public Library], which counts Reese Witherspoon among its followers and has been studied by social media marketing experts. In Milwaukee, the social media team members have become local celebrities, sometimes getting stopped on the sidewalk. And after multiple out-of-state commenters said they would plan a trip to Milwaukee just to visit the library, the MPL has become an unofficial cultural ambassador for the city, working with Visit Milwaukee on promotional tourism materials.

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