Published Article

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the use of social media for information dissemination among librarians in Nigerian universities. The study had three objectives, research questions, and hypotheses. The theories applied for the study were the Theory of Total Quality Management (TQM) and the Diffusion Theory, while the conceptual framework and empirical reviews were built on Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and WhatsApp for information dissemination. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design, with selected Nigerian university libraries as the area of study. A researcher developed questionnaire titled "Social Media Tools and Information Dissemination Questionnaire (SMTIDQ) was used to collect data from respondents for analyses. The population of the study consisted of 354 librarians, while the census sampling technique was used to sample 328 librarians. The collected data were analyzed using the mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions. The findings of the study revealed that Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and WhatsApp can be used for information dissemination by librarians in Nigerian university libraries, but the ones that are mostly used are Messenger and WhatsApp. The study recommended, among other recommendations that there is a need for more awareness programs in the form of conferences, workshops, and training sessions for librarians to stimulate new ideas and sensitize them to the great potential of social media tools in disseminating information in libraries.

KEYWORDS: Social Media Tools, Information Dissemination, Librarians and Nigerian Universities