What is Information Delivery

In a bid to satisfy the growing needs of library users, the social media hype has gradually crept into the library profession with a wide variety of social media applications such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Skype, Library Thing, Ning and so on being common tools for carrying out routine tasks within the library community. This paper will provide an overview of social media applications and identify those that are commonly used in libraries in Nigeria as well as explore the reasons for using social media applications in libraries and how they are employed in performing sundry library routines. The paper will also examine the future role of librarians with respect to the current realities as presented by these social media applications as well as the opportunities and the challenges of using social media applications in libraries. Recommendations and future trends in the use of social media applications will also be highlighted.