Open AccessWho disseminates academic library information on Twitter?
Author(s) -
Kim Hae Min,
Abels Eileen G.,
Yang Christopher C.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
proceedings of the american society for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1550-8390
pISSN - 0044-7870
DOI - 10.1002/meet.14504901317
Subject(s) - dissemination , academic library , variety (cybernetics) , world wide web , information dissemination , social media , computer science , library science , internet privacy , telecommunications , artificial intelligence
The purpose of this study is to investigate information dissemination by academic libraries through an analysis of retweet users on Twitter. Academic libraries have posted a variety of information for their patrons on Twitter; however, we know little about who has an interest in academic library tweets and to whom the information is disseminated. To this end, we explored a network of academic libraries by analyzing categories of users who are involved in retweet activity. The results show which user groups disseminate academic library information. We collected 571 retweets and 506 retweet users from 10 academic libraries' Twitter accounts, and categorized them into 12 groups. The results indicate that the primary groups disseminating the tweets of academic libraries are units within universities and students.