Abstract
There has been a lot of research done on Web 2.0 technologies and social media
facilities in academic libraries. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and instant
messaging (IM) offer a lot of scope for librarians to communicate and interact with
students reaching a wider population of students, disseminating information in a
variety of ways, and getting feedback from students. A survey of 99 students at the
Dublin Business School measured whether students use the different social media
facilities provided by their academic library. It also asked, if they do not use the
social media facilities provided by the library why they don’t and whether they think
it is important that the library provides these facilities. Many of the respondents had
not used the social media facilities provided by the library. The research showed that
about half of students did not know that the library provided social media facilities
such as Facebook, Twitter, or Blogs, and approximately another third were not
interested in the facilities. Although the IM feature was the most popular with over
half of students having used the facility at least once, almost a quarter of students
did not know the library provided the service. The study also showed that even
though many students had not been aware or were not interested in using the social
media facilities provided by the library, more than half of students thought that the
library should have a Facebook and Twitter account, and a large majority thought
having the IM service was important. The results of the study indicate that if the DBS
library is to benefit from the potential of social media facilities it must look into
different ways to promote the awareness and advantages of these facilities into the
consciousness of the student population. Author keywords: Library, social media, social media facilities, social media services, academic library, DBS Library
