sillygwailo

Foursquare and the Vancouver Public Library

This would combine two of my great loves, libraries & books and social location sharing services. I don’t like Foursquare—I’d rather hang out with my friends than compete with them (if I could opt out of the point counting and leaderboard, I’d use it more)—but understand it and accept it. In my power to do so, in other words, it may continue to exist.

Is this a good idea? Or should we restrict Foursquare to for-profit enterprises, which it would be effectively restricted to anyway? Yay capitalism?

dlbrows:

If you have no idea what Foursquare is here is a good overview.

If you’ve ever played foursquare you know how addicting it can be and how some nights it’s the reason you get off the couch. You want to be at the top of the leader board, become the mayor of your favourite haunt, or just use it to check out new places. Either way it gets you out of the house and into stores, pubs and yes, even libraries.

Recognizing this companies have started to come up with freebies and discounts for foursquare users who check in at their place.

So what’s this have to do with the VPL? How do you give discounts on free?

First, full disclosure; I am the Mayor of the Central Branch. But as I don’t live directly downtown I could be easily ousted so don’t think of this as trying to reward myself. But I did think of a way the Vancouver Public Library could encourage people to check in a little more than they already do (and thus, hopefully, be reading a book or two more than they normally do).

It’s simple and easy.

Throw up a sign/whiteboard somewhere in the branches that says, for example, “The Mayor of the Central Branch, Dave B., recommends The World According to Garp by John Irving”

Now obviously it could get a little tiring if they had to change these every time someone new became mayor which is why I would suggest setting a cut-off time. Whoever is mayor as of closing on Sunday night would have their recommendation up for the week.

Go to the VPL, check in, become mayor, get recognized as mayor and get a chance to recommend a book.

Just a fun little idea I thought could work for the Vancouver Public Library and maybe other Libraries in other foursquare cities.