Journal Article: “A Longitudinal Comparison of Public Libraries’ Posting Activities on Twitter in April of 3 Years, Pre-, During, and Post-COVID-19”
The article linked below was recently published the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (JOLIS).
Thank you to SAGE Publishing for removing the paywall and making the article available to all.
Title
Authors
Source
Journal of Librarianship and Information Science
DOI: 10.1177/0961000622112898
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to observe how public libraries’ communication on Twitter has been changed before, during, and after the COVID-19 outbreak. A total of 40 active, public library Twitter accounts were used for data collection and analysis. The tweets examined were a combination of original tweets (n = 2623) and retweets (n = 666) posted from other Twitter accounts on the public libraries’ Twitter feeds. A content analysis scheme was used to analyze topical aspects of the tweets. The study found that public libraries were more active in communicating information on social media during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Promoting library events/programs, communicating library operations to patrons, and highlighting library resources for literacy are common in public libraries’ Twitter communication throughout the 3 years period. The study also observed strong associations between the content types of posts and the contextual aspects of the libraries, including an emergency situation such as the COVID-19 lockdown, the size of the population served by the library, and the state in which the library was located. In other words, the study provides evidence that public libraries use different communication strategies on Twitter depending on factors such as community emergencies, service population size, or geographic location. The results of this study illustrate that through social media usage, public libraries demonstrate their competence as public agencies in managing their services, as well as their commitment to the core value of information access and service provision to users, even in the face of unprecedented crises.
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Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Data Files, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users, Public Libraries, Publishing
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.