Qi Kang
Nankai University, China
Title: The Use of Mobile Social Media WeChat by Academic Libraries in China: Changes over the Years 2013–2015
Biography
Biography: Qi Kang
Abstract
This paper discusses the possibilities for using mobile social media WeChat in promoting academic library services and collections and describes the changes that occurred between 2013 and 2015. The results of an analysis of the top 116 academic libraries in China for the occurrence of WeChat elements and social media activity are presented. The main uses of WeChat are general social networking services (SNSs) and automatic answering and interaction features, which include seeking and sharing information, user self-service, and keyword-identified reference auto-responders. It also shows the dynamics of change in terms of how libraries use WeChat services. This comparative study shows that over the 2 years studied the number of libraries using social media increased, as did the variety of tools and the frequency of their use. We observed that most libraries had already improved and added many functions as comprehensively utilize WeChat’s capabilities. The findings indicated that the libraries had already incorporated social media tools into their services. The experience of Chinese university libraries is used to provide recommendations for other libraries.