Would you like to be my friend?

Patron responsiveness to academic library Facebook posts

Suzanne ParfittMaster of Information Studies (Applied Research)

Charles Sturt University, Australia

https://flic.kr/p/2vbjsP

A primary benefit of Facebook is to facilitate interaction with students.

Brian Mathews, 2006

https://flic.kr/p/jFEN1u

“Going where patrons are”Farkas, 2007

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“Be where the conversation is” Lankes, Silverstein, Nicholson &

Marshall, 2007

Knowledge is created through

conversationhttps://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2015/05/12/09/13/social-media-763731_640.jpg

Chen et al. (2011)

33.32% posts – announcements of events or updates 56.75% 23.43% posts – promotion of library services and resources 7.87% posts – for discussion

13.29% 5.42% posts – for enquiry

How are academic

libraries using Facebook?

Digital Engagement Framework

(Visser & Richardson, 2013)

Reach Interest Involve Activate

Followers ‘Likes’ Comments Share postsWrite posts

• Library-patron conversations to facilitate knowledge generation

• Universities are increasingly focusing on student engagement (Jisc, 2014)

• A changing world means academic libraries must find new ways to interact with students

What are the relationships between attributes of

academic library Facebook posts and patron responsiveness?

https://flic.kr/p/9EhzwC

Research Question

Plan

March 2016 Ethics approval then the study begins

October 2016 The research and the report will be complete

March 2015 Began literature review

June 2015 Began working on the research proposal

My studyCase study methodAustralia and United Kingdom

My Study

Purposive sample• Pages with lots of responses

(Activated)

• Pages with very few responses (Reached)

My studyCase study method

My Study

Data collection:• Content analysis

Coding use Philips’ (2011)

themes as a basis• Questionnaire

open & closed questions

My studyCase study method

My Study

• Questionnaire open & closed questions

Possible issue – will academic libraries be willing to post a link to my questionnaire?

ReferencesChen, D. Y.-T., Maxwell, W., Chu, S. K.-W., Li, W. Z. S., & Tang, L. L. C. (2011). Interaction between libraries and library users on Facebook. Presented at the The 2011 Research Symposium of the Center for Information Technology in Education (CITERS 2011), The University of Hong Kong., Hong Kong. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10722/161205  Farkas, M. (2007). Going where patrons are: Outreach in MySpace and Facebook. American Libraries, 38(4), 27. Retrieved from https://bocescareer.wikispaces.com/file/view/Farkas_goingwhere.pdf  Jisc. (2014). Listen, understand, act: Social media for engagement. Jisc Inform, (39), 6. Retrieved from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/inform/inform39/ListenUnderstandAct.html#.VQ0TlTSUehB  Lankes, D. R., Silverstein, J., Nicholson, S., & Marshall, T. (2007). Participatory networks: The library as conversation. Information Research. Retrieved from http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/Publications/Journals/COLISFinal-v7.pdf  Mathews, B. S. (2006). Do you Facebook?: Networking with students online. C&RL News, 306–307. Retrieved from http://crln.acrl.org/content/67/5/306.full.pdf

Phillips, N. K. (2011). Academic library use of Facebook: Building relationships with students. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 37(6), 512–522. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2011.07.008  Visser, J., & Richardson, J. (2013). Digital engagement in culture, heritage and the arts. Retrieved from http://digitalengagementframework.com  

Any questions?suzanneparfitt@me.com

@sueparfitthttp://searchingshelves.weebly.com

Suzanne ParfittMaster of Information Studies (Applied Research)

Charles Sturt University, Australia

https://flic.kr/p/2vbjsP