BookTok & LibraryTok – gathering TikTok data and hashtags
Presentation from Camilla Holm Soelseth on the article "Public libraries on TikTok – Emerging platform vernaculars of communication and distribution".
Main content
About the study
"While libraries have long embedded social media platforms into their work practices, TikTok being a comparatively new addition. After its international launch, TikTok quickly became a popular platform, especially a space for “book talk”, called BookTok.
The literature on libraries and TikTok is sparse, and little research has been done to investigate actual TikTok usage by libraries systematically. There is also a methodological advancement to be made in how to approach hashtags as chains when analyzing social media content. In this paper, we explore how Norwegian public libraries use TikTok, employing a dataset of 3248 posts as the basis for our analysis.
The study combines digital methods approaches for data collection and analysis with traditional knowledge organization approaches, focusing on hashtags and hashtag chains as part of the complex socio-technical and algorithmic system. We ask two research questions: What are the overall characteristics of TikTok presence by Norwegian public libraries? How are hashtags used by the libraries for communication and distribution? Our contributions are both empirical and analytical.
Empirically, we provide a unique analysis of Norwegian libraries’ presence on TikTok, finding that libraries contribute to the ongoing construction and maintenance of BookTok and LibraryTok, and the intersection of these sides through book recommendations and events. We further introduce the concept of approaching hashtag chains as daisy chains, signifying a deliberate but unsystematic tactic of tagging posts, part of the platform vernacular, serving the dual act of influencing distribution and communication in a complex algorithmic system."
About Camilla Holm Soelseth
Camilla Holm Soelseth holds a Ph.D. in Library and Information Science from OsloMet, specializing in the mediation of culture. She is the current Chair of the National Research Network for Digital Humanities and Culture Organization (DHKO). Her research interests concern the media ecologies of post-digital contemporary culture, combined with the use of digital methods. Special attention is given to distribution and the infrastructures organizing culture. Her thesis covered instapoetry as a post-digital phenomenon, and her current research focuses on digital social reading (i.e. booktok), public libraries, and the civic imagination. She is secretary and co-curator of Oslo International Poetry Festival.
