Higher education and facebook: Faculties versus academic libraries. A case study

Abstract

Although the importance of Facebook has been demonstrated in education, very little research provides concrete evidence on its use as a means of communication. This research is one of the very few, if any, to go into faculties and their libraries and try to analyze the use of Facebook and to determine which faculties or libraries are putting the opportunities offered by Facebook to optimum use in order to communicate with their audiences for promotional purposes. The findings indicate that Facebook plays an important role in commu nication between universities libraries and their audience in order to achieve greater efficiency, brand image and reputation, but in the case of the three faculties analyzed our study revealed significant shortcomings in comparison to their libraries. The results reveal a professionalization of the use of Facebook tools by libraries universities, creating new opportunities, while faculties fail to achieve this level.