International Journal of Technology Management and Information System (IJTMIS) eISSN: 2710-6268 [Vol. 2 No. 4 December 2020]
Journal website: http://myjms.mohe.gov.my/index.php/ijtmis
ACADEMIC LIBRARY AND ITS USERS: SOCIAL MEDIA AS INTERMEDIARY
Nurfaizah Kamarudin1*, Suhaida Halamy2 and Mohsinin Mohsin3
1 2 3 Faculty of Information Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sarawak, MALAYSIA
*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Article Information:
Article history:
Received date : 21 October 2020 Revised date : 22 October 2020 Accepted date : 2 November 2020 Published date : 6 December 2020
To cite this document:
Kamarudin, N., Halamy, S., & Mohsin, M. (2020). ACADEMIC LIBRARY AND ITS USERS: SOCIAL MEDIA AS INTERMEDIARY. International Journal Of Technology Management And Information System, 2(4), 1-9.
Abstract: The academic library using social media is to generate a stronger and better-informed learning community. The intensification of social media has designed new ways to seek and share information for millions of users worldwide. Social media play an important role in every domain especially with information science and the library. The implementation of social media with its unique features of updated information has become an important communication instrument to attract everyone in the library. A greater challenge to the library is to create efficient and interesting social media sites that successfully adopt a library's visibility, voice, and presence to the unique contexts, audiences, and cultures within diverse social media sites. The existence of social media expands the library's physical manifestation into virtual space and increases the library's visibility, reach, and impact. Establishing social media can enhance service delivery to library clientele. The academic library requires a best practice social media program to educate and guide acceptable online behavior and activity for social media to be a positive experience for all. This paper identified and discussed some important issues about the role of social media in the academic library. Apart from creating awareness of its role, putting better hope for social media can be a
1. A Symbiotic Relationship Between Library and Social Media
The term social media is composed of two words, namely ‘media’ and ‘social’. ‘Media’ is defined as a means of communication (Laughey, 2007 and McQuail, 2010). Meanwhile, the word ‘social’
is defined as a social reality that every individual takes an action that contributes to society. Media and all software are ‘social’ or in the sense that both are products of social processes (Durkheim in Fuchs, 2014). Social media is an internet-based application that makes creation and exchange possible content created by its users. The main reason this social media application has succeeded in attracting the interest of various groups because it is easy to use for communication in various dimensions, in the form of sound, email messages, pictorial messages, as well as sharing links with just one click (Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010) and Alsanie, S.I. (2015). Thus, social media is described as a platform that comprises several actors, all working in the communication process.
It involves new strands of media involving interactive participation (Manning, 2014).
A library is a dynamic place of a set of resources in a various format that is organized by information professionals and experts and made accessible for reference and borrowing to the community. The execution of various programs and activities by the library enables the community to realize that the library’s function is more than what they anticipate. Libraries are adapting their services to support online communication instruments and promote this new relationship. The presence of social media and its rapid growth has had its impact on most fields now and the library is no exception to it. The era of social media and the advancement of the internet is a challenge for every information institution, in this case the library maintains its consistency as the number one servant in the distribution of knowledge and information. Users are in the mode of accessing the information by using their hand-held devices which allows them to communicate, organize, share and exchange their ideas, thoughts and information. For that, libraries can take advantage of social media as an intermediary for their users. In addition, social media can also be used as a form of service in the library, for example disseminating information. Communication via social media between libraries and users is considered quite effective. Social media for libraries in the online era such as now is very important, because the library continues to grow and as the center of civilization towards an intelligent society.
2. Visibility of Social Media in Library’s Official Web Page
Social media is pervasive and distributive in the digital era today, including in higher education and academic libraries. Thus, social media have to be visible and noticeable by the users on the library’s official web page, to get connected with the librarian, as well as the other people for sharing information related to library resources, services and events. In this library’s official web page of UiTM Library Perpustakaan Tun Abdul Razak (PTAR) Sarawak as shown in Figure 1, the social media are visible and been placed under contact us menu to connect and communicate with the librarian and acquire the latest information on the library.
Figure 1: UiTM Library PTAR Sarawak web page
As shown in Table 1, the list of social media adopted in UiTM Library PTAR Sarawak. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Blogspot are common social media used by the users, especially among students and staff.
Table 1: List of Social Media Adopted by UiTM Library PTAR Sarawak
Social Media URL Address
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/library.uitm.sarawak Twitter https://twitter.com/libuitmsarawak YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/ptartvsarawak/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ptar_sarawak/
Blogspot https://library-uitmsarawak.blogspot.com/
In the time of the COVID-19 crisis, the library has presumed in using social media actively and effectively. By adopting social media, the inquiry from the users is actively responding in a prompt.
The usage of each social media tool differs from each other. Facebook is more preferable to be used by students (Howard, 2018) in getting news, sharing information, engaging with friends, and doing research. However, there are differences between each of the social media platforms in terms of usage and functions. YouTube is able to assist the users as well as the librarian in distributing and delivering the guideline or know-how ways in demonstrating the steps in doing research, and how to fully utilize the library resources and services. Moreover, it helps libraries to get closer to the users (Sumadevi, 2019) by adopting social media in responding and communicating with the users.
3. Application of Social Media in the Library
Social media can be a prevailing tool used to communicate information quickly and in real-time, generate interest among people, share ideas, and build an online community. (Rivosecchi, Melissa). As for that, Tun Abdul Razak Library (PTAR) of UiTM Sarawak is striving on using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram & Blog as means of communication to reach their users and to promote their services and collections available.
Facebook offers users three ways of interaction concerning content: likes, shares, and comments.
Likes, shares, and comments necessitate varying degrees of interaction, with like requiring the least effort while shares and comments entail more (Brubaker & Wilson, 2018). Thus, Twitter has become the third largest social networking service in 2010, with over 160 million users and 370 000 more individuals signing up each day (Efrati, 2010; Johnson, 2010). With over 2 billion active users per month (YouTube, 2020). At length, YouTube’s slogan was “broadcast yourself”. This included youths that play the newest video games or exchange beauty tricks and tips, as well as political actors, who are now able to evade the mass media’s gatekeeper function and connect with like-minded people and create their own alternative influence network on YouTube (Lewis, 2018).
Instagram is a free, mobile, social networking application used for photo and video sharing. Take a picture, edit it, and then share it with friends and followers. This is the routine that Instagram users—over one-third of the US population (Smith & Anderson, 2018)—follow and enjoy. (Nicole E. & Erin S., 2019). A blog (WeBLOG) is a Web site that contains dated entries in reverse chronological order (most recent first) about a particular topic (n.a. 2020). Blogging is an online journaling activity where writers segment their opinions on a subject for personal or business reasons. It has come a long way since its inception in 1993 which is reflected by the fact that researchers estimate more than 31 million active bloggers in the US in 2020. (Skarba, A. 2020).
The application of social media platform is promoting library services towards a newer dimension.
In promoting library services, social media platforms if properly used can increase the value in the library, education of users on new stocks in the library and changes the behavior and perceptions of users about the library. (Omini &Osuolale2019).
4. Importance of Social Media
Social media is commonly used by people nowadays because of the accessibility, user interface, usage and functionality. The importance of social media within the institutions is for providing information, doing marketing and promotions, engaging with users and sharing information. The use of social media by students was tremendous in the paper by Akeriwa et al. (2015) revealed that 92 percent of respondents of graduate students at the University for Development Studies (UDS) indicated their interest in accessing reference services through social media using mobile devices.
Good social media engagement requires considerable staff time and management commitment to ensure the reputation of the library is enhanced in the eyes of users.
4.1 Improve Customer Service
In replacing the face-to-face consultation or reference services conducted by the library, social media practice is more suitable and it will affect the way of customer service. Academic libraries have to embrace social media more efficiently and effectively in order to connect with the campus community, promote library services and collections, and to get feedback from library visitors.
Hence, to become proactive customer service, the organization uses social media to handle the service problem in innovative and revolutionary ways (Stewart, Atilano and Arnold, 2017).
4.2 Ease and User Friendly
The ease of access and user-friendly interface make this social media become useful for people to get the information needed anywhere at any time. Furthermore, as the technology embedded in the library environment as well as the increased use of internet services, the academic libraries have to embrace social media tools to engage with the users as the community in ensuring the library resources and services are more accessible and user friendly (Harrison et al., 2017).
4.3 Interactive Communication with Users
Social media is built to communicate with the users interactively. The users can use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Blogspot to chat or ask the questions to a librarian or library staff on duty to get the answer in effective ways. Social media were used to facilitate the dynamic communicative processes between the users and the librarian, which changed the traditional ways of delivering and disseminating information on library resources and services. The users and librarians will stay interactive and supportive in sustaining the functions of social media in academic libraries. In this digital era, academic libraries can keep constant touch and effective interaction with users in an online collaborative environment (Kumar, 2015) and enabled people in interacting and sharing information online (Xu et al., 2015).
4.4 Promotion and Marketing Purpose
Marketing has become vital and essential in public agencies and non-profit organizations. The use of social media in the library such as to do a promotion and marketing to the library events, resources and services, including user outreach, interacting with users, and information sharing in order to engage with the users. Apart from that, the use of social media also can create awareness to attract users to fully utilized the library. Moreover, social media is integral to the market library (Sumadevi, 2019), by using social media tools, the academic libraries can do promotion on their resources and services, publicize news and events and increase their visibility, outreach and customer engagement (AlAwadhi and Al-Daihani, 2019). Chatten and Roughley (2016) confirmed that by using social media in academic libraries, the engagement with users and community is increased. Furthermore, to enable academic libraries to create, deliver and share as well convey the information resources and services with users, social media is used effectively as a leveraging tool. Academic libraries develop social media networks for marketing to make users and non-users interact and communicate their information needs. With this marketing strategy, it can increase the users’ awareness of academic libraries on their services, resources, activities, events and new arrivals of the collections (AlAwadhi and Al-Daihani, 2019).
5. Risk and Challenges Faced While Using Social Media in the Library
Despite the advancement usage of social media, there are a few challenges that come with the benefits. The students from lower-income and rural areas may not have access to the web when they are not on campus, owing to their lack of web-enabled phones and networked computers. The tragic experience of students in technologically disadvantaged communities is not based on a geographical location, but rather supposedly functional technologies disabled by unpleasant structural conditions such as uneven connectivity (Williams, Dhoest & Saunderson, 2019).
In some organizations, their staff comes in different stages of age and capabilities. The lack of staff and the lack of ICT-skilled staff emerged as challenges in using social media. The study also mentioned that many staff have been in the library 20-30 years and have little exposure to social media. Hence, the on-going pressure to respond quickly and adapt to changing trends in the communications landscape intimidated the library staff (Noorhidawati, Chu, Rajagopal, Wan &
Yeung, 2015).
Social media is usually maintained by librarians or library staff, a tendency to see incoming notifications every time is not impossible for them. They tend to be unaware of the surrounding environment, widening social relations, reducing privacy between librarians and visitors, decreasing the librarian's performance and productivity and causing health problems such as eyes and body posture.
6. Conclusion and Recommendation
Whilst coping with the rapid evolution of technology, librarians need to be well-equipped to serve the patrons better, especially to young patrons, who are severely engaged with social media currently. However, not all librarians are an expert at using social media tools. Library management should conduct staff training and upgrading of social media skills among the librarian and library staff. They should get familiarize themselves with the several uses of social media so that they can formulate strategies and ventures of these tools to ensure that they are on the same wavelength with the younger generation. (Noorhidawati, Chu, Rajagopal, Wan & Yeung, 2015).
Librarians must be able to think out of the box, for example, holding a library talk program with general material outside the context of the library. This is like conducting socialization with material about social media, such as social media ethics, tips on sleep hygiene without smartphone interference and wise social networking. The use of social media for library service development is quite effective but there are several things that need attention from library management. First, updating information needs to be done regularly. Information updates regularly show the benefit of the use of social media because social media is likened to a library gate and users usually prefer to check through social media before coming to the library directly.
The growth of social media can go protracted towards evolving dynamic library service. The most important thing that must be realized by libraries, the use of social media has the consequence of more open communication between libraries and the community, users can be more critical, the library is expected to respond faster than offline services. Social media provide a transition in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. Active communication between the library and users creates added value directly contribute to better visibility of the library in the digital environment. With the expected use of social media, libraries can be closer to the community and able to provide the best service.
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