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THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR INFORMATION
DISSEMINATION BY LIBRARIANS IN NIGERIAN
UNIVERSITIES
15th Annual IS Conference, University of Zululand, South Africa,
September, 2014
Ganiyu Quadri, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, e-mail: [email protected]
Oluwafemi Idowu, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, e-mail: [email protected]
Introduction
What is Social Media (SM)?
Chu & Du (2013) described the social media as any "collaborative environments employing web 2.0 technologies".
It includes any internet-based or mobile application which operates for the purpose of collaboration, where participants can connect, create, comment, view, share, rate, discover, profile and exchange user-generated content (Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden, 2011).
SM include Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, Skype, and Google+, et cetera; and librarians are making all efforts to integrate them in the library services.
Introduction (contd…)
The advancement in media and communication technologies has enabled many academic libraries to take their services beyond the physical walls of the library building.
In fact, librarians in developing countries are now being compelled to follow the new trends in web technology adoption for effective service delivery.
Objective
find out the level of awareness of social media among librarians in the federal universities in Southwest Nigeria;
investigate the types of information disseminated to the library users through the social media;
find out the level of use of social media for information dissemination among the librarians; and
identify the problems encountered by librarians when using social media for information dissemination
Methodology (contd…)
Population: The target population comprises the academic librarians in three federal university libraries in Nigeria.
The selected universities were the University of Ibadan, Obafemi Awolowo University, and Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta.
Sample: There were a total of 82 professional librarians in the three university libraries and this also formed the sample for the study.
Methodology
Instrument: Structured questionnaire titled “Social Media Use and Information Dissemination – SMUID was used.
Procedure: The questionnaire was administered on the respondents by the researchers and other members of staff in the selected libraries
Data Analysis: SPSS was used to analyse the data while the results were presented in tables and bar charts.
Findings and Discussion
100% were aware of the facebook
93.3% of the respondents were very much aware of Google+
MySpace and Hi5 were the least type of social media that the librarians were being aware of
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Hi5
My Space
Flickr
Netlog
Academia.edu
blog
Skype
Youtbe
Google+
Awareness of social media by librarians
36.7
40
51.7
51.7
58.3
73.3
76.7
81.7
86.7
88.3
93.3
100
Fig. 1: Social media awareness by librarians
Fig. 2: Information dissemination through the Social Media
73.3% provided Current Awareness Services (CAS) to users
63.3% provided reference services;
Less that 50% indicated document delivery and customer services
Fig. 3: Level of Use of Social Media by librarians
Face book was the most highly
used social media by majority
(66.7%)
Almost half of the librarians
(50.5%) highly used Google+ for
information dissemination
Hi5, My Space, Flickr, LinkedIn,
Skype, Academia.edu, YouTube
and the blog were the least used
SM
Fig. 4: Challenges of social media use by librarians
• The challenges include:
• Erratic power supply (83.3%)
• Poor internet connectivity (81.6%)
• Lack of infrastructure (66.7%)
• Technical constraints (65%)
• Only 16.5% identified lack of ICT skills
Conclusion and Recommendations
• The librarians now recognised the SM applications as a means of creating more interactive, user centered library and information services.
• The study demonstrated that the level of awareness of social media tools among academic librarians in Nigeria directly affected the level of adoption and usage of these social media tools. However,
There is need for more awareness programmes in form of conferences, workshops and trainings for librarians
Alternative solution like generating plant to resolve the erratic power supply
References
Chu, S. K.-W., and Du, H. S. (2013). Social networking tools for academic libraries. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 45, 1 pp. 64-75. DOI= 10.1177/0961000611434361 .
Hanna, R., Rohm, A., and Crittenden, V. L. (2011). We're all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem. Business Horizons 54, 3, 265-273. DOI= 10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.007
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