COVID-19 and #LibraryAnywhere: Staff perspectives on the use of social media by the University of Roehampton Library during the Covid-19 pandemic

This study aimed to explore the perceptions of library staff at the University of Roehampton in relation to the library’s use of social media since March 2020. This was done by distributing a questionnaire and then conducting interviews with willing participants, which included all who had been responsible for managing the accounts. This study in particular aimed to identify what staff felt the priority for the Instagram and Twitter accounts were how the Covid-19 pandemic impacted them. The main findings from this research were that work was needed to create a social media strategy and identify target audiences, as well as increase awareness of the accounts amongst library staff as the awareness of how the accounts were managed were found to be lower outside of the customer services team, who have the most contact with those responsible for the accounts. It also found that the pandemic had a major impact on the work processes the social media group used to manage the accounts, in addition to impacting the types of content. Twitter was identified as requiring more work to develop than the Instagram account, with participants believing that content needed to be encouraging more engagement and cited a lack of risk taking as currently preventing this. The study also identified multiple areas for further research, including how Instagram stories could best be used by academic libraries