Readers Response

This is a readers response about facebook. It was taken from a journal that was peer reviewed. I use facebook at work and at home to keep in touch with family. I hope you find this as interesting as I did.

In the article, “Use of Facebook in Academic Health Science Libraries,” the discussion is centralized around a study of the use of Facebook in these types of libraries. Facebook, one of many social networking tools, was originally founded for college students to use internally. The purpose of the study was to figure out if Facebook was being used consistently and if not, why academic health science libraries are not drawn to this technology. The study was available online for two weeks. Survey respondents were department heads, Outreach Librarians and library directors.

The study found that Facebook is not widely used in academic health science libraries. A total of 144 people took the survey and half responded. Eighty-five percent of them did not have a Facebook page at their library. The reception about Facebook was lukewarm at best. The perception is that Facebook was developed for non-academic use and that is its only purpose. Reasons given for not using Facebook were no administrative support, lack of knowledge, and time to set up and maintain a Facebook page. A greater concern was the possibility of networks blocking access for security.

There are many positive uses for Facebook in an academic health science library. Some of these include flexibility, visibility, and serving large groups who can form at will. Some uses specific to academic libraries are to provide chat reference, searching databases, catalogs and tutorials. It seems the use of Facebook at academic health science libraries remains small. Though use is growing, the ultimate results remain to be seen.

Hendrix, D., Chiarella, D., Hasman, L., Murphy, S., & Zafron, M. L. (2009). Use of facebook in academic health sciences libraries. Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA), 97(1), 44-47. Retrieved from http://www.mlanet.org/publications/jmla/