Study Raises Doubts About Effectiveness of Facebook as Outreach Tool for Academic Libraries

"A new analysis of user comments on the Facebook page of academic libraries indicates that most students 'appear to reject connecting with their libraries on Facebook.'

The study, which appears in the current issue of D-Lib Magazine, by Michalis Gerolimos of the Alexander Technological Educational Institute in Thessaloniki, Greece, examined 3,513 posts on the Facebook pages of 20 U.S. academic libraries.
Significantly, Gerolimos found that 91 percent of the posts did not generate any comments, and the few comments that do appear are primarily by library personnel rather than by faculty or students."

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So, do you agree? It seems to me that libraries need to connect to their patrons any where (and any WAY) they can. We show (by our presence on social media of all kinds) that we're relevant and useful. The reference department in my library even conducts reference interviews and offers help via chat - however, Gerolimos' findings do seem to ring true on our campus. Most of the libraries' posts are "liked" by other staff members or by librarians at other locations. What can we do to alter this? Public libraries seem to have more interaction with their patrons, but even there - the patrons that do react are not of the demographic we deal with on college campuses. The social media pages do succeed at one thing though which warrants mention: they are still disseminating information that the other libraries/librarians (the folks who apparently DO read the posts, and "like" them) SHARE these things with their patrons.

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Study Raises Doubts About Effectiveness of Facebook as Outreach Tool for Academic Libraries:
A new analysis of user comments on the Facebook page of academic libraries indicates that most students “appear to reject connecting with their libraries on Facebook.”

The study, which appears in the current issue of D-Lib Magazine, by Michalis Gerolimos of the Alexander Technological Educational Institute in Thessaloniki, Greece, examined 3,513 posts on the Facebook pages of 20 U.S. academic libraries.

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