Librarians’ Awareness and Use of User Generated Content (UGC) on Social Media for Information Services in Public Tertiary Institutions in Katsina State, Nigeria

Abstract

The paper examines librarians’ awareness and use of user generated content (UGC) on social
media for information services in public tertiary institutions in Katsina State, Nigeria. The study
hinges on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and sought to answer the following research
objectives: To explore the types of social media used by librarians for information services and to
determine the librarians’ level of awareness of user generated content on social media for
information services. Quantitative research method using survey research design was employed
to guide the study and the population of the study consists of the one hundred and forty-one (141)
Librarians in thirteen (13) public tertiary institutions in Katsina state. One hundred and six (106)
librarians responded to the questionnaire with results showing librarians’ awareness and use of
social media user generated contents for content creation and sharing was quite diverse. The
findings of the study indicated that Twitter and WhatsApp are the most common social media tools
that the librarians are aware of and the librarians showed lack of awareness of LinkedIn,
Instagram and Wiki. Results also revealed that Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook were the most
common social media used by the librarians for information services. In addition, the findings
revealed that LinkedIn, Instagram and Telegram were the least types of social media used by
librarians for content creation and sharing. This study concluded that despite librarians use of
user generated contents on social media in public tertiary institutions in Katsina State, their level
of awareness and use for information services is restricted to a small number of social media
platforms. The study recommended that more focus should be geared towards increasing
awareness and promoting the use of various available social media platforms. Increasing the
awareness would help the librarians provide more information services to their diverse users.