How Libraries Can Use Social Media Effectively

Information Provisioning 1
A RAPID EVIDENCE REVIEW REPORT ON HOW LIBRARIES CAN USE SOCIAL
MEDIA EFFECTIVELY TO ENGAGE WITH THEIR USERS
By
(Name)
(Course)
(Professor’s Name)
(Institution)
(State)
(Date)

Information Provisioning 2
Table of Contents
1. The Executive Summary......................................................................................................................3
2. Introduction..........................................................................................................................................3
3. Methodology..........................................................................................................................................5
 Document search.............................................................................................................................5
 Application of exclusive criteria to narrow search results................................................................5
 Classification of studies...................................................................................................................5
 Quality assessment..........................................................................................................................6
 Synthesis and assessment of the body of evidence..........................................................................6
4. Literature Review.................................................................................................................................7
5. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................10
6. References...........................................................................................................................................12

Information Provisioning 3
1. The Executive Summary
The manager issued a directive to write a rapid evidence review report on how libraries can use
social media to engage with their users in an effective way. A rapid evidence review involved
five major steps. Regarding document search, I searched for all the resources from Google
scholar and jstor websites. Then, I excluded some of the resources basing on some specific
criteria such as year of publication, context and not available in full-text. I remained with 16
sources. In classification of studies step, I classified 16 remaining resources into the following
three groups; primary sources, secondary sources and qualitative studies. In step 4, I evaluated
quality of each material. Finally, I assessed the materials that helped me to provide the solution
to the research question. The following are some of the major report findings; social media can
be used to market library resources, goals are important before implementation of social media
technologies and instant messaging is one of the important tools of web 2.0 technologies.
2. Introduction
The report has focused on information provisioning. Information can be defined as processed
data. Currently, it plays some important roles in different companies and organizations
worldwide. It helps an organization to identify the needs of its clients. This enables it to satisfy
its customers’ needs by improving quality of products. Other than identifying customers’ needs,
information is also used to enhance smooth running of day-to-day business operations (Al-
Mamary, Shamsuddin and Hamid 2014, p.3). Finally, information also helps management to
understand the roles of new technologies before implementation. Following these developments,
the manager requested me to write a rapid evidence review report on how libraries can use social
media to engage with their users in an effective way. A rapid evidence review method involves
the following steps:

Information Provisioning 4
Research problem: In this step, the research question is formulated.
Document search: This step involves searching for materials such as books and journals that
can provide a solution to the research question (Astell-Burt & Feng 2015).
Application of exclusion criteria to narrow the search results: In this step, some of the
resources are removed basing on some specific criteria such as year of publication and language.
Classification of studies: The remaining materials are divided into different groups not limited
to anecdotal reports and qualitative studies (Astell-Burt & Feng 2015).
Quality assessment: In this step, each resource is evaluated basing on its quality to enhance
reliability.
Synthesis and assessment of the body of evidence: This step is concerned with justification of
the resources (Astell-Burt & Feng 2015).
Definition of terms used in the report:
Social networking sites: These are platforms that enable people to interact with each other.
Resources: These are materials such as books, journals and articles.
Information: It is data that has been processed and can be used to make important decisions.
Quality assessment: This is the process of evaluating resources basing on their quality.
Architecture: This is the structure of something such as library.