The use of social media among library professionals and patrons: A review of literature

TL;DR

This review paper examines how social media is used by library professionals and patrons, highlighting its benefits in communication, awareness, and marketing within various library types.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of social media adoption in libraries and discusses its positive impact on library services and user engagement.

Findings

Social media facilitates instant information dissemination.

It enhances connection between library staff and users.

Libraries benefit from increased visibility and resource marketing.

Abstract

This paper focused on the utilization of social media by library professionals and library users. It provides an understanding of social media, the most popular social media platforms utilized in the libraries. It also mentions the reasons for the adoption of social media in libraries be it academic, public, school libraries and other types of libraries. This is a review paper on the use of social media among library professionals and patrons. The findings reveal the contributions of social media to the libraries. Social media makes things easy for library professionals and library users. It enables them to connect, create awareness to new information, disseminate information instantly, and helps to market the library resources and services. Therefore, it is recommended amongst others that the library management board should encourage the use of social media in libraries.