Understanding Twitter use by major LIS professional organisations in the United States

Although Twitter has been widely adopted by professional organisations, there has been a lack of understanding and research on its utilisation. This article presents a study that looks into how five major library and information science (LIS) professional organisations in the United States use Twitt...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of information science 2018-04, Vol.44 (2), p.165-183
Main Authors: Zhang, Min, Sheu, Feng-Ru, Zhang, Yin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Libraries
Library and information science
Library associations
Mathematical analysis
Science education
Social networks
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Summary:Although Twitter has been widely adopted by professional organisations, there has been a lack of understanding and research on its utilisation. This article presents a study that looks into how five major library and information science (LIS) professional organisations in the United States use Twitter, including the American Library Association (ALA), Special Libraries Association (SLA), Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE), Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) and the iSchools. Specifically explored are the characteristics of Twitter usage, such as prevalent topics or contents, type of users involved, as well as the user influence based on number of mentions and retweets. The article also presents the network interactions among the LIS associations on Twitter. A systematic Twitter analysis framework of descriptive analytics, content analytics, user analysis and network analytics with relevant metrics used in this study can be applied to other studies of Twitter use.
ISSN:0165-5515
1741-6485
DOI:10.1177/0165551516687701