An Evaluation of Level of Awareness and Extent of Utilization of Social Media Platforms in Service Delivery by Librarians in a Federal University

Social media which is seen as a channel made available for people to communicate and share ideas, information and content in online communities and networks is a collection of software and web tools that allow users to create and share content participate in conversations and develop individualized network of friends, colleagues, or organizations.  This study therefore is an evaluation of the level of awareness and extent of utilization of social media platforms in service delivery by Librarians of Federal university libraries using Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ikwo, Nigeria as a case in point. The design for this study is a descriptive survey research design with a sampled population of 12 librarians selected through census sampling techniques which entails that all librarians working in Alex Ekwueme Federal University Library, Ikwo, Nigeria formed part of the study.  Working with the objectives of the study, a four-point scale modified Likert type structured questionnaire was designed by the researcher which forms the principle instrument used for data collection. Data collected were analyzed using frequencies, percentages and mean while results were displayed in tables and a chart. The outcome of the study shows that librarians of Alex Ekwueme Federal University are highly aware of the existence of most social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, YouTube, Webinar, Telegram and TikTok and that regardless of the fact that the librarians are highly aware of most social media platforms in use in libraries today, these social media platforms or tools are not in use in their library for service delivery with the exemption of Facebook, Whatsapp and Messenger.  It was also discovered that there are many factors inhibiting the utilization of the various social media platforms in service delivery in Alex Ekwueme Federal University library. These constraints as identified include inadequate funding, poor internet connectivity, epileptic power supply and lack of commitments on the part of university management to use the technology among others.  Based on the findings the study suggested among other things that the federal government of Nigeria as the financier of federal universities and their libraries should make available adequate funds to get these libraries well equipped with the state-of-the-art facilities as obtained in university libraries of developed nations so as to be better placed to meet up with the information needs of their teeming users being the information and research hub of the parent institutions and that university librarians should be appointed on merit and target set for such librarians in that it will be mandatory for all university library management to ensure full implementation of all needed information service delivery technologies such as the social media for effective service delivery.