Knowledge and Use of Social Media among Nigerian Librarians

IntroductionThere is a growing awareness and increase in the use of Social Media (SM) today, Forrester, Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), Connoly Mark (2011). Therefore SM represents a revolutionary new trend that should be of interest to companies operating in online space- or any space for that matter Kaplan and Haenlein (2010). SM platforms have been described as a promising solution for building electronic social networks Richter D, Riemer K, and Vom Brocke J (2011). SM had changed the way users communicate, collaborate and exchange knowledge through the various platforms Wasko M.M. L; Teigland R. and Faray S, (2009). SM has been described as tools that are used in digital environment in which contributions and interactions among all stakeholders are enabling a higher degree of collaborative knowledge creation and sharing Mergel Ines (2010), Chang Ai-mei and Kannan P.K. (2008), O'Reilly, T (2005), Sternstein, A. (2006). There seems to be more work on the use of SM by organisation, government, business, companies etc, while less seems to have been done on educational purposes or functions. Connolly Mark (2011) stated that more than 90% of college students visit a social networking site, and he also stated that SM show value in educational settings as long as they are used prudently. Some of the educational benefits of this media have been pointed out. SM tools and networking sites encourage students to engage with each other and to express and share their creativity, overcome the kind of isolation that otherwise might lead her to leave school, create sense of belonging, also develop leadership skills. Cultivating and developing deep learning, developing a capacity for practical reasoning. These have all been identified by Connolly in his work.Borrowing from the aforementioned, this work intends to find out Librarians knowledge and how they have also been using SM. Also to find out the following stated objectives with a mind of suggesting ways or modalities of improving on the use of it both at the personal and official level. It is also intended that this work might serve as a platform for creating awareness for those Librarians who might have not seen any reason for using SM and increase the scope to which some Librarians have been using it for.To determine the level of knowledge of librarians about SMTo determine the distribution and knowledge of other SM address among the Librarians.To determine the most commonly use SM address/accountTo determine the average number of SM address(es) own by Librarians.To determine various uses of SM among librariansTo determine duration of use of SM among librariansTo identify the various devices/hardware of accessing SM among librariansTo identify the commonest place(s) of accessing SM address among librariansLITERATURE REVIEWWhat is Social Media (SM)? Social Media (SM) has been defined by some author and a few of these definitions will be mentioned here for the sake of this work. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) described it as a group of internet-based applications that builds on the ideological and technological foundations of web 2.0, and that allows the creation and exchange of User Generated Content (UGC). Web 2.0 is considered as the platform for the evolution of SM or the ideological and technological foundation for SM. UGC has been seen as the sum of all ways in which people make use of SM.According to Bowley, R.C. (2009), SM is defined as a collaborative online applications and technologies which enable and encourage participation, conversation, openness, creation and socialisation amongst a community of users. Panahi,S; Watson, J; and Patridge Helen (2012) says SM have provided an effective channel for social interactions and real time conversations between users in forms of chatting, video/telephone conferencing etc.SM comprises new online tools for publishing multimedia content often in a variety of formats including texts, video, audio and pictures. …