Fashion librarianship: A Case Study on the Use of Instagram in a Specialized Museum Library Collection

This case study describes the use of Instagram by a fashion librarian at the MetropolitanMuseum of Art’s Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library (part of The Costume Institute). In a little over three years,@costumeinstitutelibrary gained over 40,000 followers and has received many accolades from the press. Instagram has been a successful medium for international outreach and advocacy of this specializedmuseum reference library, as well as an increasingly popular tool for reference inquiries when working with non-academic patrons with backgrounds in creative and fashion-related fields. The author reviews best practices, provides examples on how@costume institutelibrary utilized the latest Instagram features and tools, recommends subscription-based social media analytics metric tools, describes free photo imaging tools used to create a consistent visual feed, and explains the behind-the-scenes workflow for this particular Instagram feed within the context of a museum departmental library. [The following article is an expanded version of a presentation given at the ARLIS/NA conference held in New York, New York, in February 2018.] introduction Appropriating the words ofDiana Vreeland: “Why don’t you . . . Instagram?” Socialmedia has changed the culture of how people access and consume information. Launched on October 6, 2010, the image-sharing mobile app Instagram is the third largest social Julie T. Lê is assistant museum librarian, The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library at The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; [email protected]. Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, vol. 38 (fall 2019) 0730-7187/2019/3802-0005 $10.00. © 2019 by The Art Libraries Society of North America. All rights reserved. 1. Diana Vreeland was the special consultant at The Costume Institute from 1972 to 1989, but before that she was the editor of Harper’s Bazaar from 1936 to 1962 and wrote an advice column called, “Why Don’t You.” 280 | AR T DOCUMENTAT ION | F A L L 2 0 1 9 | Vol. 38, No. 2 media platform in the United States. By June 2018, Instagram gained over one billion active users worldwide, and over 500 million accounts use it every day. Also in 2018, there were over 25 million business accounts on Instagram, indicative of how important this social network has become as a branding andmarketing tool not only for commerce, but for cultural institutions as well. Instagram has redefined, if not revolutionized, the fashion industry, and it may possibly be the largest footprint in Instagram’s world, evenwinning the 2015 Council of FashionDesigners of America’smedia award in honor of Eugenia Sheppard. In Matthew Schneier’s 2017 New York Times article, he observed that “Fashion in the age of Instagram [is] a heady era in which digital media is changing the way clothes are presented and even the way they are designed. As shows are calibrated to be socially shared experiences . . . fashion itself is rejiggered to catch eyes on a two-dimensional screen.” Not surprisingly, over 200million Instagramusers are connected to fashion-related accounts with over 555 million #fashion posts that have been shared worldwide, indicative of its tremendous influence. Eva Chen, director of Fashion Partnerships at Instagram, validates this by saying “fashion and Instagram are so intrinsically linked right now. I don’t know that one can exist without the other these days.” Since its inception, Instagramhas always been evolving and adapting to how users engagewith one another by frequently adding or updating new features and tools. Exploring the comparatively smaller world of librarianship, worldwide there are over five million #library posts, along with trending hashtags within this community such as #shelfie (over onemillion posts), #librarylife (240,000 posts), #librarian (200,000 posts), and #librarylove (120,000 posts). To promote The Costume Institute’s specialized reference collection, it seemed to be the obvious step to connect to as many users as possible via Instagram. @costumeinstitutelibrary speaks to those interested in historical and contemporary clothing, books, printed matter, libraries, and all the related topics that fit in between.