We are certainly familiar with Twitter. Twitter is one of the largest social networking media that has been widely used, especially by teenagers, including by college library users, in this case, the academic community, which is mostly in their teens. On the other hand, college libraries are required to be able to meet its users for information. In this regard, research was conducted to determine the effect of level of Twitter users’ satisfaction on college library utilization.
Nowadays, almost everyone cannot be separated from the internet. They want to be connected to the internet; people even feel worried when someone is unable to connect to the internet. That dependency also applies to social media like Twitter. The majority of college library users are teenagers; of course they are already familiar with Twitter. Seeing the characteristics of college library user behavior like that, college libraries need to utilize Twitter to present information related to library activities and other relevant information. Moreover, Twitter is one of the main social media for teenagers. Therefore, Twitter is considered effective to be used by university libraries to disseminate information to users of library.
The results of this study illustrated the satisfaction of library Twitter’s users affects the college library utilization. This research was conducted at Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) library, which has been serving users for eight years via Twitter. The UNAIR Library uses Twitter to provide information on its activities.
Twitter is considered to have a significant role in spreading information compared to similar media, like Facebook, Instagram, line, and other social media. Even though Mark Zuckerburg claimed Facebook had more users, the number of users between Twitter and Facebook is just as massive.
User characteristics and information distributed via Twitter are unique, such as mature users, seriously presented information, short and dense, and the instant speed of information dissemination.
Twitter content also tends to be serious, and it is very rare to find accounts owned by minors. The other advantages of Twitter are the list feature, fast timeline updates, unlimited friendship, and hashtags.
Twitter limits the characters for each tweet, only 140 characters. However, it is deemed positive by college libraries to utilize Twitter as a medium of information. So, the information conveyed is more concise and not too long.
In other words, Twitter offers some advantages from its easy features, concise and massive information, and its users are more mature. After doing the study, the satisfaction of UNAIR’s Twitter library users includes surveillance, diversion/entertainment, personal identity, and social relationship affect the utilization of UNAIR libraries both partially and simultaneously. The results of this study indicate that social relationships established on Twitter have a significant influence on library utilization.
Therefore, Twitter can be used as a medium of information and promotion of a serious institution such as a college library. College libraries can always provide services that are following the characteristics of its users which mostly teenagers.
Through Twitter, college libraries can also present fun and entertaining information, not merely providing information that supports Tridharma of higher education. However, the college library can also be a recreational medium for users. (*)
Author: Dessy Harisanty, S.Sos., M.A.
Reference : Harisanty, D. (2019), “Level of user satisfaction on the Facebook library”, Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 7-8.
Link : https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/LHTN-11-2017-0080/full/html
