Access to Sammanthurai public library through social media

Abstract

Social media is a pathway to anyone to create share and collaborate subject matters and information through information technology. According to Amarakoon (2012), the library should adopt social media for maximum exploitation of library services. Therefore it is high time to study the adoption of the social media to enhance library services. Amir Ali public Library (Grade II) is located at Sammanthurai, in the Ampara district. Sammanthurai is vast area which has a population of 37,000, so the library serves for a large user community. This library has developed Social Media as a supporting service. The objective of this study is to examine how far library users and staff are adopt Social Media to access library services. This research was conducted using survey method. Though there is a big population, researchers were unable to get a big sample. Due to time limit the researcher used a handful of small sample by using purposive sampling technique. Questionnaires and interviews were used as research tools. The study revealed 10 to 30 years age groups of this library are using the social media frequently and others use rarely. However, Most of the users perceived that they prefer to use Facebook to access the library. This study recommends that Facebook page of this public library should be enhanced and the other social media also should be introduced. Librarian has to start training program for library staff to provide excellent services through this media. In addition users also should be trained on how to use this type of services.