A Study on the use of Facebook, RSS, Blogs and Twitter(Web2.0) among selected academic libraries from 6 Gulf

countries namely: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United ArabEmirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait

KAUSTRepository

Item type Conference Paper; Presentation

Authors Ramli, Rindra M.

DOI 10.5339/qproc.2014.gsla.3

Journal QScience Proceedings

Rights Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.

Downloaded 31-Aug-2015 06:52:33

Item License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Link to item http://hdl.handle.net/10754/315115

A Study on the use of Facebook, RSS, Blogs and Twitter (Web2.0) among selected academic libraries from 6 Gulf countries namely: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait Presented by Rindra M Ramli Access and Digital Services Spec, KAUST Library Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Agenda

•  Introduction & Purpose of Research •  Overview •  Research Methodology •  Findings •  Conclusion •  Recommendations

Introduction & Purpose of Research

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Overview

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Overview

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Overview

Mahmood & Richardson 2011 – Surveyed 100 ARL in USA RSS and Instant Messaging are popular tools Publishing new / announcements Sharing items published on library blogs

Overview

Chua and Goh (2010): Researched 120 library websites from Asia, Europe and North America Blogs, RSS and social networking sites were more prevalent in library websites in North America as compared to Europe and Asia

Overview

Chua and Goh (2010): Blogs: Focused on subject specific topics as well as a tool for communication RSS: Used for communicating news and events, updates of resources or collections on websites

Overview

Kim and Abbas (2010): Investigated 230 academic library websites 73% uses RSS 65% uses blogs 15% uses twitter

Overview

Tripathi and Kumar (2010): Out of 151 websites (USA): 56%: Instant Messaging 34%: Blog 22%: RSS

Research Objectives

Research Methodology

Exploratory study: Involved content analysis on selected library websites Visited and Browsed for the presence of the selected social media tools Total: 101 library websites Conducted between Sept – Oct 2013

Breakdown

Kingdom  of  Saudi  Arabia    

Qatar   United  Arab  Emirates  

Bahrain   Kuwait   Oman  

Number  of  Public  UniversiGes  

28   1   11   4   1   2  

Number  of  Private  UniversiGes  

5   9   16   10   2   12  

Grand  Total   33   10   27   14   3   14  

Social Media usage among Gulf countries libraries

Sampled    101  Websites  

Non-­‐Existent    

Existent   Pointed  back  to  Uni  

Total  

Facebook   48%   11%   42%   100%  

Twi"er   53%   10%   37%   100%  

RSS   80%   16%   4%   100%  

Blogs   99%   0%   1%   100%  

46%  

80%  

KSA:    Breakdown  of  universiHes    using    social  media  

Public  Private  

Facebook and Twitter are the most commonly used tools 18%: Facebook 15%: Twitter 12%: RSS

0  

2  

4  

6  

8  

10  

12  

14  

16  

18  

Facebook     Twi"er     RSS  

18  

15  

12  

KSA

100%  

78%  

Qatar:      Breakdown  of  universiHes    using  social  media  

Public  Private  

RSS, Twitter and Facebook are the commonly deployed tools 30%: RSS 20%: Twitter 10%: Facebook

0  

5  

10  

15  

20  

25  

30  

Facebook   Twi"er   RSS  

10  

20  

30  

Qatar

82%  75%  

UAE:  Breakdown  of  universiHes    using  social  media  

Public  Private  

RSS, Twitter and Facebook are the commonly deployed tools 30%: RSS 4%: Twitter 4%: Facebook

0  

5  

10  

15  

20  

25  

30  

Facebook   Twi"er     RSS  

4   4  

30  

UAE

50%  50%  

Bahrain:  Breakdown  of  universiHes    using  social  media  

Public  Private  

RSS, Twitter and Facebook are the commonly deployed tools 7%: RSS 7%: Facebook

0  

1  

2  

3  

4  

5  

6  

7  

Facebook   RSS  

7   7  

Bahrain

0%  

50%  

Kuwait:  Breakdown  of  universiHes    using  social  media  

Public  Private  

RSS, Twitter and Facebook are the commonly deployed tools 33%: Twitter 33%: Facebook

0  

5  

10  

15  

20  

25  

30  

35  

Facebook   Twi"er  

33   33  

Kuwait

50%  

33%  

Oman:  Breakdown  of  universiHes    using  social  media  

Public  Private  

Twitter and Facebook are the commonly deployed tools 7%: Twitter 7%: Facebook

0  

1  

2  

3  

4  

5  

6  

7  

Facebook   Twi"er  

7   7  

Oman

Library promotion: Opening hours announcements, access to e-resources, general news, library collections Library services: Orientation and training programs Feedback

Common uses

Comparing with library websites from USA, Asia and Europe with Gulf countries: Commonly used: RSS & Facebook (Social Networking sites)

Co-Relation

Challenges

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Interesting Finding

Salem & Mourtada: Facebook users in Arab world is around 45 million UAE, Kuwait and Qatar are the front runners – Facebook users

Interesting Finding Salem & Mourtada: Twitter users: Saudi Arabia: 830,291 Kuwait: 370,987 UAE: 263, 070 Bahrain: 72, 468 Qatar:: 59, 835 Oman: 9,832

Recommendations:

Tool to connect to the users -  Proper planning -  Monitoring – new trends and tech

advancements -  Moderation -  Rules

Future studies:

-  Preferred social media tools -  Determine how social media tools

can better serve the library users -  Eliciting information from library

users on the information that they (the users) like to receive from libraries

Thank you