Social Media Policy
Policy Statement
The Queen Anne’s County Library uses various online social media services in order to provide a public forum for sharing information, ideas, and opinions about library resources, services and programs. These forums are intended to create a welcoming and inviting space where library users can interact with library staff and other library users, while finding useful and entertaining information related to the library.
Definition
Online social networking software is defined as any website or application which allows users to generate and share content. The library use of social media tools can include, but is not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Pinterest , blogs, and wiki’s.
General Provisions
Content
The goals of the Queen Anne’s County Library’s sponsored social networking sites are:
To inform the public about library resources and activities
To increase the public’s use of library resources
To provide additional communication with members of the public
Comments from Public
Comments, posts, and messages are welcome on Queen Anne’s County Library social media sites. The library reserves the right to use any comments or posts for library marketing purposes. While the library recognizes and respects differences of opinion, all such interactions will be monitored for content and relevancy, The Library reserves the right to modify or remove any messages or postings that:
Defames, abuses, harasses, stalks, threatens or otherwise violates the legal rights of others.
Is of an inappropriate, profane, defamatory, infringing, obscene, indecent, racist, sexist or unlawful nature.
Violates any applicable laws or regulations.
Violates the copyright, trademark right or other intellectual property right of any third party.
Advertises or offers to sell or buy any goods or services.
Represents any organized political activity.
Hyperlinks to websites that are not directly related to the current discussion or topic.
The library reserve the right to delete any comment posted on our sites that we deem inappropriate.
Liability and Participation
The Queen Anne’s County Library assumes no liability regarding any event or interaction that takes place by any participant in any library sponsored social media site, and does not endorse content outside of the pages maintained by library and the posts created by the staff as part of their work duties.
Privacy
The library does not collect, maintain, or otherwise use the personal information stored on a third party site in any way other than to communicate library related information with users on that site. Users may remove themselves at any time from the library’s friends, likes or followers’ list or request that the library remove them. Users should be aware that third party websites have their own privacy policies and should proceed accordingly.
Protect your privacy. Do not post personally identifying information. Young people under age 18, especially, should not post information such as last name, school, age, phone number, address.
Staff Responsibilities
When representing Queen Anne’s County Library (QACL) via social media, staff should:
Conduct themselves at all times as representatives of QACL.
Not make statements about patrons, or post, transmit, or otherwise disseminate confidential information.
Not represent postings as official QACL opinion or policy, unless this has been clearly approved by the Library Director.
Not conduct political activities or non-library business.
Observe and abide by all copyright, trademark, and service mark restrictions in posting materials to electronic media.