Use of Facebook in academic health sciences libraries

Originally founded to link students at Harvard University, the social networking application, Facebook, has evolved into the most visited social networking site in the world with over 90 million active users. Specializing in regional and scholastic networks, Facebook boasts an 85% market share at universities and colleges in the United States [1], and a recent study of more than 800 University of Florida medical students and residents determined that 44.5% use Facebook [2]. As academic health sciences libraries explore social networking technologies to create and market library services, Facebook provides a flexible space to interface with a large number of students. Homegrown applications for Facebook have been created by libraries to answer reference questions, search online public access catalogs, and host multimedia collections. For health sciences libraries, whose users are often widely dispersed, Facebook offers several opportunities for outreach and instruction. For example, self-organizing groups of users (i.e., medical student class of 2010, pharmaceutical sciences undergraduates) afford targeted marketing opportunities despite their distributed locations (i.e., teaching hospitals, rural clinics, commercial pharmaceutical laboratories). Additionally, Facebook encourages developers to create applications that could be useful in a health sciences setting (i.e., PubMed Search application), form affinity groups (i.e., Medical Library Association Facebook group), and fashion library fan pages. Despite an abundance of literature about the social networking site Facebook in newspapers, magazines, and other popular publications, Facebook as a topic in the library literature is scarce. A review of the literature revealed that the majority of published articles provided an introduction to the application and social networking in general. Particularly lacking were research-based articles on Facebook's use in libraries. Searching specifically for research relating to the presence of health sciences libraries on Facebook yielded no results. To partially fill this void, this study was designed to determine the extent and nature of institutional Facebook use by academic health sciences libraries. Secondarily, the authors sought to gauge the perceived success of institutional Facebook pages. The authors recognized that many librarians used Facebook personally and professionally; however, these types of individual use were not the focus of this study. Omitting descriptive and editorial communications, this literature review summarizes some representative research-oriented studies on libraries and Facebook found in the database, Library Literature. Mack et al.'s article, “Reaching Students with Facebook: Data and Best Practices,” discussed a librarian's use of Facebook as a means to collect and answer reference questions [3]. The lead author promoted his Facebook profile during subject-specific library sessions with undergraduates, along with his availability for consultation via Facebook. During the fall 2006 semester, reference inquiries were counted by email, telephone, instant messenger, and Facebook and in person. Out of the 441 received reference questions, the most reference questions were collected through Facebook (126), followed closely by email (122) and in-person consultations (112). The authors recommended that libraries create a Facebook group as a “fun way to find out who your library fans are out there.” In “Internet Reviews: Social Networking Software Follow-up: Facebook and MySpace (and more),” Greenwell and Kraemer discussed their strategies for using Facebook to bolster student awareness of library services [4]. Creatively, the authors scanned student group conversations on Facebook (i.e., “Class of 2011”) to answer a variety of questions that surfaced in the course of those conversations. Additionally, they paid to advertise a freshmen event on Facebook, noting that while the advertising was inexpensive, its effectiveness was difficult to evaluate. Charnigo and Barnett-Ellis conducted a survey of academic librarians to ascertain perspectives on Facebook and its implications in libraries [5]. Reporting on their findings in “Checking out Facebook.com: The Impact of a Digital Trend on Academic Libraries,” they noted their sample of librarians (n = 123) were aware of Facebook and its use on campus. In terms of Facebook's potential as an academic tool, 54% of those surveyed said there was no academic use, 34% were unsure, and 12% felt that such promise existed. This latter minority suggested the use of Facebook in academic settings to promote library services, set up book clubs, and create online study groups. Survey data found that most librarians were neither “enthusiastic nor disdainful” of Facebook. Mathews's article, “Do You Facebook?”, chronicled his experience using the social networking site as an outreach tool [6]. In his role as a library liaison Mathews contacted 1,500 students in the school of mechanical engineering via a messaging application in Facebook. While some students simply responded “thanks,” others initiated questions. Other positive results of this outreach included his being “friended” by students and being recognized outside of the library at other campus locations. Mathews encouraged librarians to embrace social networks to increase visibility and “let students know what the library is all about.” Most recently, Chu and Meulemans provided insight into how students were using Facebook and MySpace in their article, “The Problems and Potential of MySpace and Facebook Usage in Academic Libraries” [7]. Data gathered through a survey and focus group revealed that 67% of surveyed students discussed their schools and professors on these two sites. Students reported a reluctance to communicate with professors via these means and indicated that email was a more appropriate means to communicate with faculty. Despite the hesitation of some students, the authors pointed out that many other campus entities such as athletics, student associations, and fraternities and sororities have a MySpace or Facebook presence. They concluded that having a library page can be a useful promotional tool.