Academic librarians and their social media presence: a story of motivations and deterrents

Despite the widespread use of social media by students and their increased use in higher education, very little empirical evidence is available concerning the prevalence of use among academic librarians. The objectives of this study are: a) to identify the prevalence of social media used in Malaysian academic libraries; b) to examine the reasons for creating a social media presence among academic libraries; and c) to understand the obstacles to social media participation among academic librarians. Data were gathered via three focus study groups with 22 librarians from three research-intensive universities in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The results indicated that at least four types of social media are deployed in libraries to reach out to the users: blogs, multimedia sharing sites, social bookmarking and social networking sites (SNS). Facebook, Blog, Delicious, YouTube and Twitter are the tools mainly adopted by these libraries. The motives for librarians to use social media were to promote library services, manage organizational knowledge and receiving instant feedback from users. Workflow obstacles, technology obstacles, organizational obstacles and personal obstacles deter librarians from participating in social media. This study provides experiential evidence that Malaysian academic librarians are not very serious in engaging themselves with social media. Library managements need to provide support to mobilize librarians into a more active and participatory role in creating social media presence.