Social Networking in Libraries: A Case Study of Post Graduate Students and Research Scholars of Panjab University Library, India

Social Networking in Libraries: A Case Study of Post Graduate Students and Research Scholars of Panjab University Library, India

Rupak Chakravarty, Anu Kiran
Copyright: © 2013 |Pages: 19
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4070-2.ch009
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Abstract

Social networking seems to be the way 21st century libraries provide services. Library services are changing with the change in the nature of library users; social networking plays a major role in serving the users. Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups of people with shared interests, communities. The prominence of social networking Websites has reached a peak in the last few years. This chapter examines libraries and their importance in embracing the Web 2.0 phenomenon of social networking. This chapter examines the importance of using social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube to enable libraries to engage with students in the virtual environment for the promotion of the library, library events and services, teaching and learning, and humanizing the concept of the library and librarians. This chapter also examines the importance that social networking sites have with improving professional relationships within the library profession and across the university, resulting in an increase of information sharing that ensures libraries are on the forefront of changes in demands and needs of their students. If libraries fail to adopt this technology, they are in danger of finding themselves extinct.
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Definitions

As defined by Wikipedia “A social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called “nodes,” which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, gender relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.”

As defined by whatls.com, “Social networking is the practice of expanding the number of one's business and social contacts by making connections through individuals. While social networking has gone on almost as long as societies themselves have existed, the unparalleled potential of the Internet to promote such connections is only now being fully recognized and exploited, through Web-based groups established for that purpose.”

SNS allow individuals to:

  • 1.

    Construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system.

  • 2.

    Articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection.

  • 3.

    View and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.

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Social Networking

It is the most promising and embracing technology and networking as well as imagination required to begin to look a library as a social network itself, in this user should have following facilities (see Figures 1 and 2):

Figure 1.

Various social networks

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Figure 2.

Information flow in social networks

978-1-4666-4070-2.ch009.f02

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