Be Heard. Forever.

In August 2006, The National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa) Act 2003 was supplemented by the National Library Requirement Notice which extended the scope of material collected through legal deposit to include electronic documents such as CDs and DVDs. Great news for New Zealand's documentary heritage, but legislative changes are not a very exciting message to sell to musicians and their publishers.

The legal deposit process in New Zealand has been in place for print publishers for decades and there is an established and formalised process for requesting new publications.

What makes the music publishing world so different from the print publishing world is the proliferation of independent music producers and independent labels. Many bands are self-published or signed with very small labels that represent maybe a half-dozen bands. The more formal approach to requesting new publications that has succeeded in the print world was not going to work with independent music producers.

Well, why not?! you might ask.

The primary method of contacting publishers to request new publications is by snail mail. Sending a letter certainly won't work if the band is on tour. Most bands don't live together in the same house, and if they're not represented by a manager (and most self-publishing bands are not), then who should we contact? the lead singer? the guitarist? the drummer? the ukeleleist?

We also wanted to open up a dialogue with New Zealand musicians, to give them information about the legal deposit process and explain the benefits of participating. People don't want to be threatened with litigation. They don't want to wade through pages of legal jargon.

So how could we educate NZ bands about the legal deposit process in a way that suits them?

Eureka! MySpace!

There are hundreds, possibly thousands of New Zealand bands using MySpace as a platform for promoting their music. They update fans about album releases, tours, changes in band members. For the Legal Deposit Office, creating a MySpace profile meant we could communicate with bands in an informal way and allow us to easily receive information about the goings-on of every band on our friends list.

We launched the profile in conjunction with a nation-wide campaign to educate independent music producers about their obligation to the legal deposit process. The Be Heard. Forever campaign was launched in May to coincide with New Zealand Music Month and received nationwide coverage, an interview with RadioActive, a Legal Deposit feature on Music 101, and information was placed on music sites like APRA and NZ On Air.

The campaign was a collaborative effort between staff in the Legal Deposit Office, the Communications Department and the Web Team. Our MySpace profile includes information about the legal deposit process, multiple links back to relevant information on the National Library website, and blogs detailing recent legal deposit submissions.

The most obvious advantage to using a social networking site to communicate our message is the level of personal interaction we have with individual groups. Engaging with bands in this space helps to give the Legal Deposit Office a more human face. It creates a very direct line of communication, from the band to a real-life librarian: someone who is passionate about New Zealand's cultural heritage and adamant that all New Zealand music producers contribute to it.

Are you thinking about how or if you should populate the Web 2.0 space? Here are a few tips and lessons learned:

• Find your focus - The last thing you should do is commit energy and resources to setting up a Web 2.0 presence for NO reason whatsoever. Always have a target audience and a clear message. For our MySpace profile, we targeted a very specific group with a very specific message: Independent New Zealand music producers need to know about the Legal Deposit process and understand the importance of their contribution to the New Zealand's cultural heritage. Doesn't get much more specific than that!
  
• Find the right Web 2.0 space - One size does not fit all. Conduct research to find which Web 2.0 applications work best for your purpose. Before choosing the MySpace website, we considered other social networking sites such as Bebo and Facebook. While Bebo is clearly the favourite among young New Zealanders, we found that New Zealand musicians choose MySpace for promoting their music.
  
• Find support from peers - Never work in isolation. Find people in your library who share your enthusiasm and collaborate with them! Seek out staff members with skills you don't have that might come in handy when creating your Web 2.0 presence (Web managers, Communications advisors, Web 2.0 enthusiasts).
  
• Ride on coattails - If possible, associate the launch of your Web 2.0 presence in conjunction with something bigger than yourself. If you have a new library blog that includes reviews of recently published books by staff librarians, perhaps you could align the launch of the blog with New Zealand Book Month. A large part of the success of our Be Heard. Forever campaign was due to the alignment of the campaign with New Zealand Music Month. Newspapers, radio stations and music-related websites were abuzz with music news and were all the more willing to embrace our campaign and publicise it.
• Don't underestimate the work involved - Social networking sites are just that: SOCIAL. There is a lot of time and energy spent communicating with people. For it to work you have to be an active participant. There are messages to send, emails to be checked, friends to make, profiles to maintain, comments to approve, friend requests to accept. The list goes on.