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OverDrive's New Status Page (by Kerri at SCLS)

9/19/2018

Did you see the news? As of September 4th, OverDrive has a new status page to communicate service issues at https://status.overdrive.com/.

OverDrive’s new status page is available to all staff and end users. You can visit the page at any time to view the status of browsing and searching, signing in, downloading, and reading and/or listening to a book. If services on the OverDrive side are running smoothly, their status will be listed as Operational. If a service is degraded or experiencing an outage, the status will be updated accordingly.

To be notified when issues are posted, you can follow the @OverDriveStatus Twitter account which will be automatically updated, or sign up for alerts via subscription options in the lower right corner of the page.

Please take a few minutes to visit the status page and feel free to share this with your staff. WPLC project managers will continue to send service alerts to the WPLC Announcements list and to the Google WPLC Support Community.

(Original post here.)

Five Steps to Address Your Non-Profit's Social Media Concerns

9/7/2018

Tech Soup's Julia Campbell has some great insight to share:

Starting out on social media can be a scary proposition for many nonprofits. Horror stories abound — staff members "going rogue" and posting inappropriate Facebook photos, volunteers tweeting too much information, negative comments being left in LinkedIn groups.

And of course, there's the story about the hapless American Red Cross employee who tweeted about #gettngslizzerd from its official account.

There's lots of fearmongering on the destructive use of social media and other online tools. And so, it's no wonder that some nonprofits are wary of jumping into the social media pool.

At a nonprofit organization, discretion, respect, and trust are paramount. A serious online mishap could lead to a loss of donors, volunteers, or community investment, or worse.

Common fears include

"Our client and staff identities need to be protected at all costs, or lives will be at risk." Example: When I worked at a domestic violence shelter, people were concerned that using social media would mean confidentiality breaches and legal problems.
"We are worried that people who need us will be less likely to seek our services if they think their name or other identifying information could be revealed." Example: An HIV counseling center might be worried about the stigma associated with the disease preventing people from coming forward.
"Our nonprofit deals with a controversial issue, and we are afraid that we may be the target of online harassment." Example: An LGBTQ advocacy organization is afraid of encountering hate speech online that may intimidate and traumatize its community.

Although these fears are understandable, they are also counterproductive. The benefits of using social media to interact with donors and to tell stories vastly outweigh the potential negatives.

Here are five steps you can take to help assuage the fears at your nonprofit as you bring your organization into the social media fold:

Read more...

OverDrive's New Status Page (by Kerri at SCLS)

Five Steps to Address Your Non-Profit's Social Media Concerns

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