By: Nontobeko Sikhosana
The developing fame of online life apparatuses has persuaded
scientists to investigate the parts such media play in ordinary life and in the
public.
What if our users used WhatsApp as a means of communication
with us? This will be a direct and user-friendly service for Library users to
use WhatsApp to contact librarians, to locate general library information and
seek assistance when using the Library. After a session we give students our
communication details so that they can contact us if they have any queries or
if they need any further assistance but they will often say ‘There is no cell
phone number there, don’t worry we won’t send a please call me we will just
send a WhatsApp message”. So again, what will happen if our students
communicated with us via WhatsApp?
WhatsApp is a mobile instant messaging tool of social media.
It make people connect in real time and most people spend a lot of time using
this application. This application is free to use and it offers various
capabilities for sharing media: text messages, images, audio clips, videos,
documents, contacts and even location data.
In some countries such as India, Zimbabwe and Hong Kong to name a few,
libraries are already using this App as a means of communication.
Most of those people
who are engaged in mobile instant messaging do so in order to maintain
connections and relationships with colleagues, family and friends.
WhatsApp has its own advantages for service delivery in
libraries and information centres such as:
- WhatsApp will encourage
partnership and advance powerful correspondence between librarians and
their users.
- Financially the costs of
WhatsApp are perceived to be low, and using WhatsApp requires little
training.
- Information about new developments
in the library can be easily, quickly and cheaply disseminated.
- WhatsApp can increase the
engagement and interactions among Librarians and their users.
- Librarians can create
group chats with different disciplines and interact with students regarding
new material, assignment help, reviews, new publications, new acquisitions
or any useful information that a librarian has posted on Libguides: you
will be promoting your Libguide at the same time.
There will also be a few challenges along the way, for example:
- WhatsApp requires
considerable time commitment from library staff
- There are limited funds
available in libraries to support more advanced social media tools and the
training that may be required to enable this.
- Librarians may not post
PDFs of electronic books or articles on WhatsApp but may give instructions
to users on how to access them via the library website or the Libguide.
- Students may suffer with
data availability when they are not on campus but data for WhatsApp is
cheaper than sending an email.
Information
technology has changed the nature of library services. Smartphone is the
essential tool for today’s life and we can use WhatsApp on smartphones to
provide library services to users.
We at UKZN can be “smart librarians” through WhatsApp.
References
Ansari, M. S. & Tripathi, A. 2017. Use of WhatsApp for
effective delivery of library and information services. DESIDOC Journal of
Library & Information Technology, 37, 360.
Lingnan University Library. 2018. Service guidelines on WhatsApp a librarian [Online].
Available: http://www.library.ln.edu.hk/research/whatsapp-guidelines [Accessed
5 August 2018].
