Use of social media as a marketing and information provision tool by the City of Cape Town Libraries

Internet-integrated applications built on the ideological and technological foundation of Web 2.0 (a platform), allowing the creation and exchange of user-generated content (the ways in which people make use of social media). The ‘Web 2.0’ term was developed in 2005 by Tim O’Reilly and refers to the changes in the World Wide Web (WWW) where users are now enabled to use digital tools to create content, make changes, publish and share this content in collaborative and open participatory environments (O’Reilly 2007). The development of Web 2.0 led to libraries developing a new term relating to the adoption of Web 2.0 applications in the library environment and thus the development of the ‘Library 2.0’ Background: Social media use by libraries has facilitated communication and marketing of services to user communities. The City of Cape Town Libraries adopted social media usage in the 2015–2016 financial year. This study is set out to assess librarians’ perception and response to the implementation and adoption of social media for library services. Objectives: The research sought to appraise the City of Cape Town public librarians’ experiences of social media use in the provision of information services, evaluate librarians’ perceptions of social media use for information provision services and recommend ways in which social media information services provision can be improved upon. Method: A quantitative research method and a descriptive survey research design approach was adopted for the study, and a web-based questionnaire was used for data collection. The study was anchored on the technological acceptance model, and employed total enumeration sampling to collect data from the 102 City of Cape Town librarians-in-charge. Results: City of Cape Town librarians have positive perception and acceptance towards the use of social media to perform library-related duties. Librarians utilised social media in engaging with library users, including marketing of library services, and promotion of library events. Experiences including lack of guidance in dealing with copyright issues and organisational policy favouring a single social media platform were reported. Conclusion: Library services through is vastly positive but expansion across multiple social media platforms is necessary to encourage further engagement with users. A third construct: preference of choice is proposed for the TAM model.