As technology continues to impact the delivery of library and information services, traditional academic library systems have continued to experience changes. Social media are changing and becoming more sophisticated, and librarians need to adopt them for innovative services to their users. Library staff skills and library services have to shift from book-eccentric to user-eccentric. As the academic library continues to redefine its role in the digital environment, it needs to leverage its strengths and create responsive and convenient services. The chapter discusses how social media can be adopted and utilized for delivering innovative services and the various innovative ways social media can be utilized in effective service delivery, the challenges associated with social media and innovative service delivery, and the strategies to enhance the use of social media for innovative service delivery in academic libraries. The chapter serves as guide to students and practitioners on the various ways to use social media for effective service delivery in academic libraries.
TopIntroduction
The library is the heart and life-line of any citadel of learning. Libraries have been the repositories of the wisdom of mankind throughout the ages. Nowadays, libraries are at the junction of expansion or deterioration. As contemporary technology impact on the library service delivery conventional academic library systems will continue to experience transformation. These changes affect both the library and librarians. For libraries, the age of information technology has brought about social media which has resulted in revolution in the entire library operations while on their part the librarians are now faced with challenges of being innovative, this is necessary if they are to remain relevant in the society. Ramjuan (2009) stated that innovation is redefining procedures that inspire discovery of new and enhanced methods to improve the usefulness of library collections and facilities. Innovation in librarianship is all about looking for new ways to improve library services.
Social media are shifting and becoming more advance daily and there is need for librarians to embrace these technological innovations for delivering innovative services to her patrons. Yen and Walter (2016) opines that innovation in academic libraries involves “transforming library services to include the contemporary needs of patrons; such new and/or re-vamped services incorporate new digital technologies, and support new paradigms of teaching and research”. For continue relevance of the libraries to her users and the society at large the contemporary needs of the users must be met.
Library services in academic library are regular of undertakings that academic libraries offer to her users or performs to meet the information needs of her user community. There are many services offered in academic libraries, these include reference service, current contents, cataloging, reservation classification, externally purchased database, circulation services, current awareness service, renewal, new arrivals, indexing and abstracting, document delivery, inter library loan, CD-ROM databases, selective dissemination of information among others (Tella and Ojo, 2012).
Similarly, Popoola (2008) stated that services offered mostly in academic libraries, Lending services, Reservation service, Provision of seating and study facilities, Reference service, Exhibitions and displays, User education, Selective dissemination of information, Referral service, Translation service, and Abstracting and indexing services. Consultancy services is one of the essential service offered to deliver expert as well as professional guidance to users etc. In this era of technological revolution, for academic libraries to survive, there must offer innovative library services to attract and stimulate the interest of the users in the use of library resources and services.