Short Communication
Year: 2020 | Month: October | Volume: 7 | Issue: 10 | Pages: 230-237
Social Media and Library Services: A Case of Covid-19 Pandemic Era
James Friday1; Chidozie, Oluchi2; Chukwuma, Lauretta Ngozi3
1Senior Librarian, Kaduna State University, Kaduna.
2Assistant Librarian, Baze University, Abuja.
3Lecturer III, Hussani Adam Federal Polytechnic, Kazaure, Jigawa State.
Corresponding Author: James Friday
ABSTRACT
Before the advent of the Covid 19 pandemic, many libraries have traditionally provided library services to users in manual and print format while few others opted for digital collection. However, with the lockdown imposed on every sector including the library, the inefficiency of most libraries in continuing her provision of useful and up to date library service to her users have been exposed. This unfortunate situation has accelerated their need to innovate new systems that will aid them to be more visible and effective in the delivery of their mandate notwithstanding the Covid 19 lockdown. This has given rise to the adoption of social media tools such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Podcasts, Flickr and blogs, Instant Messaging (IM), and Rich Site Summary (RSS) in libraries. This paper discusses social media for library services; adoption of social media for library services in the Covid 19 era; and issues of social media for library services in the Covid 19 era. The paper concluded that social media by libraries have increased the effectiveness of most libraries in their provision of library services to their users who are isolated and restricted to use the regular physical library collection. Recommendations were that library staff should be provided with regular training in the use of new tools and social media platforms to make them IT compliant and in turn, they can utilize these tools for library service delivery
Keywords: Social media, Library services, Library staff, Users, Covid 19 pandemic
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