Towards a visibility of algerian libraires in

social media eraSatellite pre-conference of the International Federation of Library Associations

and Institutions (IFLA). Management & Marketing SectionStockholm ( Sweden) 7-8 August 2010

By: Bentenbi CHAIB DRAA TANIUniversity of Oran, Essenia, Algeria

                                                          

chaibdraatani@yahoo.ca

INTRODUCTION

Although libraries have always provide knowledge and have always connected people with information, it appears that they nowadays need to be known to the Google and social media generation.

Social media are considered and recognized among the tools of marketing and promoting the most attractive, which can also be applied to the library world. They dovetail with social networking sites or video sharing in order to promote their activities, their new products and services, and / or increase their visibility

Kaplan Andreas M., Haenlein Michael (2010) Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media, Business horizons, 53(1), 59-68

Social media is defined as: "a group of online applications that rely on ideology and technology of Web 2.0 and enable the creation and sharing of content generated by users”

Social media are social because they encourage conversation more than traditional media which also provide content, but does not allow user to collaborate in its creation and development.

  Moreover, their main interest lies, in traffic generation

related to their viral marketing aspect, which is not without interest for our libraries.

Are Algerian libraries aware of the challenges imposed by these changes? Are they planning for the use of social media at short or medium term? Knowing that 4.5 million person (12.8% of the population) are web users.

Readers begun to be rare and those who came just check up on the computers in the library giving access to the web.

Create both real and virtual social network having common know and know how interest, in order to support the library in its future projects.

Co-create online content with the user.

Develop a virtual identity. Given that Algeria is investing heavily in information technology to improve its ranking in the World Economic Forum (113th of a total of 133 countries)

Position itself as a leading source of information and documentation for our youngsters who are faced with a lot more content from overseas

Why should algerian libraries use social media?

Objective of the study:

-Inform and stimulate discussion about the importance of Algerian library presence on social media sites.

- To educate our librarians to the impact of social media on both:

a/ - Libraries (Information and knowledge access is no longer exclusively linked to the library as a source and a space).

b/ - Librarian (he is no longer the only information and documentation specialist).

- Make a state of the art of libraries that already use social media.

Population: Libraries being part of the university network, under the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. 218 libraries have been affected to this survey.

Size of specimen: 140 from 218 libraries responded to the survey, representing 64.22% of the population, according to fig 1.

   Data Collection: the questionnaire has been sent by email over a

period of 15 to 27 July 2010. The response times ranged from less than 24 hours for 18 libraries (12.85% of respondents), three days for 67 libraries (47.85% of respondents) and one week for the 55 other libraries or (39.28%) responses

   Nature of questions: they revolve around three interrelated

components of the trio: library, librarian and user

Geographic distribution of libraries participating in the questionnaire

  Libraries from the centre of the country are the most represented with 54 (39% of respondents), followed by the west represented by 45 (32% of respondents) and finally the East 41 (29%).      This allocation is based on that adopted in the university network that was for us, a valuable source of information to library sites. It should be noted that the western region also includes the universities and academic centers located in the southwest such as Adrar and Bechar.

39%(54)

32%(45)

29%(41)

centreEstOuest

4532%

54 (39%) 41

(29%)

About librariesResponses represent 80% of university libraries, knowing that this figure includes 24 central libraries (17% of responses) and 88 faculty libraries (63% responses). The other responses are divided between the university center libraries (6.5%) and national higher school libraries (6.5%), those of higher teacher (1%), library of preparatory schools (4%) and finally those of research centers (2%), thus covering a significant part of academic institutions on the national territory

17% (24)

63% (88)

6.5%(9)6.5%(9)

1%(2)4%(5)

2%(3)Universitaire Bib. Cen-traleUniversitaire Bib. de facultéDe centre universitaireD’école Nationale SupérieureD’école normale supérieureD’écoles préparatoiresDe Centre de recherche (dont BIBLIOUNIV)

About librarians

library curator represent 47 (33%) of capital respondents,

followed by library directors (23%), then library associated (18%), Chief curators 22 (16%) and project managers (particularly computer project) 14 (10%) whose opinion is important for us.The post of Director has been created in the new Algerian library statute.

16%(22)

33%(47)

23%(32)

18%(25)

10%(14)

Conservateur en chef

Conservateur

Directeur

Attaché de biblio-thèque

Responsable de pro-jet (notamment in-formatique)

Age

The age of respondents ranges from a young population, which are under 35 years old (23% response), a second one younger than the first installment, which are less than 45 years old (46%) and the third tranche more or less close to retirement, represented by 31% of responses. We believe that the age is an important factor that may influence the responses and therefore, the opinion on the use or non use of social media. Young people probably do less effort to adapt themselves both physically and mentally to technological methods and tools.

4%(5)6%(9)

13%(19)

28%(39)18%(25)

15%(21)

16%(22) 20-2525-3030-3535-4040-4545-50>50

About social media

The presence of Algerian libraries on social media sites is poor and it is first divided between the use of micro bloging such as twitter (12 libraries 12% of responses) and social networking sites including facebook within 9 libraries (8% of responses). Sharing sites including YouTube and Dailymotion video as well as those designed for photo sharing as Flickr are little or not used at all.

   

8%(11)12%(17)

2%(3)

2%(3)

4%(5)

1%(1)

1%(2)

4%(6)

2%(3)

64%(92)

Facebook

Twitter

Linkind

Youtube

Dailymotion

Blog

Wikipédia

Flickr

Slideshare

Skype

Googletalk

Forum

Autres

n’utilise aucun de ces médias

About social media  Some libraries using several social media at the same time, are more advanced on twitter then on facebook. This applies, for example BIBLIOUNIV library portal, a project being launched by CERIST (Research Centre on Scientific and Technical Information) and the Library of the Graduate banking School. (See annex).

Among the 92 (64%) respondents who confirmed not using any social media, 59% add: "Nevertheless, these sites are used by our users," knowing that this issue has not been explicitly asked. This “spontaneous” reaction seems to be positive and reflects that our librarians are up to date about the practices of their users 

8%(11)12%(17)

2%(3)

2%(3)

4%(5)

1%(1)

1%(2)

4%(6)

2%(3)

64%(92)

Facebook

Twitter

Linkind

Youtube

Dailymotion

Blog

Wikipédia

Flickr

Slideshare

Skype

Googletalk

Forum

Autres

n’utilise aucun de ces médias

Some libraries using several social media at the same time, are more advanced on twitter then on facebook. This applies, for example BIBLIOUNIV library portal, a project being launched by CERIST (Research Centre on Scientific and Technical Information).

obstacles preventing the use of social media

42 respondents (30%) ignore the actual causes or even see the importance of using social media in their libraries. The latters are not in any way adverse to the idea of studying this issue in the near future. It should be noted that lack of time, hardware and qualified personnel represented by 23%, 15% and 16% respectively of responses, appear to be real barriers to the use of these communication and sharing information and knowledge in Algerian libraries. 8% of Respondents believe that Social media have a real problem of information security and they harm "sometimes" They Said, the reputation of the library (5% of answers). Only 3% of respondents consider that these media are not more than a fad

23%(33)

15%(21)

16%(22)8%(11)

5%(7)

3%(4)

30%(42)

Manque de temps

Manque de personnel qualifié pour prendre en charge de tels pro-jets

Manque de matériel (informatique) nécessaire pour réaliser de tels pro-jetsCes médias n’assurent aucune garantie d’in-formation

Ces médias nuisent à la réputation des bib-liothèques

Ce sont des outils à la mode et pas plus

Vous ne savez pas et vous pensez étudier cette question à l’avenir.

Respondents point of view on the importance of using social media in Algerian Libraries

Although many of the Algerian libraries do not use social media, Much of respondents (69%) believe that these tools are important (very important 18% and 51% fairly important). This reflects their positive attitude towards such practices, despite the obstacles. 10% are against the use of these tools in Algerian libraries and 21% are less informed and prefer to study this issue in the near future

18%(25)

51%(71)

10%(15)

21%(29)

Très importante

Assez importante

Pas du tout impor-tante

Vous ne savez pas encore

help that can social media make for algerian libraries

Improve its image on the web (27%), Promote its products and services (21%), Build both real and virtual networks in the context of possible collaborations in library projects (17%) responses  The communication aspect was represented in second place, either among users (4% of responses), or between them and librarians (8% of responses) Social media could also help the library to reach new users, which was expressed by either 27 (9%) responses.

21%(63)

4%(12)8%(23)

9%(27)17%(53

)

27%(82)

14%(41)

Promouvoir les services de la bib-liothèque

Développer la communication en-tre les usagers

Développer la communication en-tre usagers et biblio-thécaires

Toucher de nouveaux usagers

Construire des réseaux virtuels pour collaborer dans les projets de la biblio-thèque

Améliorer l’image de la bibliothèque sur le web

Aucune idée

Users reaction to the use of social media (from respondents point of view)

The figures reflect that respondents are aware that users will increasingly use these means of communication, they would be happy (67% of responses) to see their libraries using web 2.0 tools, which we hope will soon be realized.67%(

93)

2%(3)

31%(44)

OuiNonAucune idée

User implication in developing web 2.0 products and services (from respondents point of view)

These figures confirm once again the attitude more or less positive of respondents from these new practices, although many of them (50%) doubted on the capacity of the latter, contrary to the fundamental idea of O'Reilly. 8% of responses support the fact that the creation of such services is only the skills of information specialists, both upset by the idea of web2.0 and social media

Tim O’Reilly, « What Is Web 2.0 : Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation ofSoftware » in Oreillynet.com [en ligne]http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html 

8%(11)8%(11

)

50%(70)2%(3)

9%(12)

24%(33)

Très positive

Positive

Positive, mais ce n’est pas sûr qu’il soit en mesure de le faire

Négative

Très négative car la créa-tion de tels services est du seul ressort des spécial-istes de l’information

Aucune idée

Conclusion

Despite the considerable efforts and resources devoted to Algerian libraries including academic ones, the poorly presence of the latter’s on the Web and more about social media, partly reflects the structures to which they are attached, including universities taking their first steps on these new media.

   

This study is insufficient in the absence of such academic work studying Algerian users behavior on the both the web and social media in order to identify their real products and services needs.

  Finally,  even the results of our investigation

seem promising as long as they do not preclude the desire to enroll in a social media strategy, we still don’t know if users really need a virtual presence of libraries, and if they are not considering social media sites as fun space where libraries are sometimes considered as nuisance

Thank you for your kind

attention!!