Saturday U. Omeluzor, Gloria O. Oyovwe-Tinuoye and Imam Abayomi
AbstractA lot of literature exists concerning acceptance and utilization of ‘social networking’ (SN) tools in academic libraries from different parts of the world. However, only a handful of work has been done on librarians’ use of SN in academic libraries in South-East, Nigeria. Therefore, this study investigated librarians’ use of SN in academic libraries in South-East, Nigeria. This study adopted a survey design using 173 librarians from the zone. Finding shows that some librarians use SN in libraries for delivery of library services. It also reveals that SN is beneficial and cost effective for academic libraries to adopt. Some challenges identified in this study inhibiting use of SN in academic libraries are erratic power supply, inadequate skill to manipulate SN and other ICT tools, technophobia, lack of awareness, insufficient bandwidth, apathy in using modern technologies and lack of internet connection. The study suggested that SN should be adopted in academic libraries for library service delivery. It recommended that academic libraries should prioritize training and retraining of librarians in the use of emerging and current internet resources, provision of power supply, ICT facilities and Internet connection to enhance delivery of library services.
Keywords: Social networking, academic libraries, librarian, South-East, Nigeria, service delivery
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