Social Media Use in Libraries and Information Services in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions

Abstract

The study was carried out to review the use of social media in Nigeria libraries and information services. The review dealt extensively with the dynamics social media brought into library services in Nigerian tertiary institutions. The technological advancement of the 21st century brought by advent of social media has great impacts on library and information services in Nigeria just like any other place across the globe. There is need for the professionals in library science or services to change their service delivery to end users along the line of social media usage with emergence of social sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, YouTube, Library Thing, Ning in which information can be easily sourced from by users Libraries in Nigeria are therefore facing challenges regarding the ability to provide proactive and more value added services to meet the ever changing needs of the end users. The reviewed article therefore made an attempt to examine the present scenario in library services delivery in Nigeria tertiary institution with these new and emerging social media technologies as well as looking at challenges facing Nigerian tertiary institution libraries in the use of these social media and to identify possible solutions to these challenges. The study concluded that to some extent social media utilization has been introduced by librarians in tertiary institutions libraries in Nigeria and that usage of social media by librarians in promoting library and information resources and services cannot be overemphasized. The study also discovered that lack or inadequate finance, poor power supply, lack of training of library staff on social media usage and limited bandwidth in the institution as the major challenges facing the usage of social media in Nigerian tertiary institution libraries. The study therefore, recommends that adequate finance should be promptly provided by the parent institutions to the libraries to enhances the use of social media to promote library and information resources and services in Nigerian tertiary institution libraries.