Social media in times of libraries 2.0: A study into the Brazilian Federal Education instituitions’ libraries bringing future perspectives for digital preservation

Abstract

This study aims to discuss the main challenges regarding the social participation on the Web by the Brazilian Federal Education Institutions’(IFES) Libraries and the changes related to the these institutions’ activities, especially interactions with their audience. The Research conducted a quantitative approach survey on the use of the main existing social media by these libraries. The survey sought to identify the level of involvement and participation of these libraries in social media. It is understood that this investigation is necessary as a foundation to the urgent need to raise awareness these Brazilian institutions as the valuable potential of interaction with their users through these media, despite the study demonstrated an incipient use. Based on the conducted survey, the study presents a reflection of the importance that it should devote to digital preservation, not only of their collections, but also the relevant records of the social media content. The results show that most brazilian public universities use Web 2.0 tools with social focus, and the greater adoption of Facebook (43%) and Twitter (29%), but only 5% of them use these medias to disseminate the collections. Thus, it was concluded that the use of social media by these libraries still have a lot to develop and consequently the digital preservation actions need to consider the inclusion of content generated by these media that increasingly have become a valuable communication channel.