Integrating social media technology for the awareness of ancient manuscript preservation

Purpose: This paper aims to explore opportunities for using social media technology to support the awareness in the digital environment of ancient manuscript preservation, as well as to share Indonesian libraries’ experiences in leveraging those media. Design/methodology/approach: This paper relies on a literature review to discuss the implementation of social media platforms for preserving and raising awareness of cultural heritage in the form of ancient manuscripts. This paper also observes how some Indonesian libraries use their social media accounts to preserve and raise awareness of ancient manuscript collections. Findings: Social media technology provides opportunities for libraries to help perform their cultural heritage preservation function in various and interesting ways. Multiple Indonesian libraries rely on social media technology to preserve and raise awareness of their ancient manuscript collections. Some of those interesting strategies are uploading posts related to the libraries’ ancient manuscript collections; posting “snapshots” of sections of ancient manuscripts; documenting ancient manuscript conservation practices; documenting the involvement of communities in preserving ancient manuscripts; announcing upcoming events and activities related to ancient manuscript studies; and posting interesting news, information and updates about ancient manuscript collections. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the existing literature and empirical studies by providing insights into the adoption of social media technology to help preservation and raise awareness of ancient manuscripts in the digital environment. This paper can help those libraries wanting to use their social media accounts to increase and develop their preservation efforts, especially when it comes to ancient manuscript collections.