Social media, academic libraries and their cultural functions

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how social media can be an effective tool for academic libraries to support their communities in the digital environment and relay information about their cultural functions. Design/methodology/approach: This paper involves a literature review to discuss the implementation of academic libraries’ cultural functions through social media account. This paper also observes some academic libraries’ accounts that use social media to carry out their cultural functions. Findings: Social media provides opportunities for academic libraries in performing and developing their cultural functions. Academic libraries already use social media to deliver and communicate their cultural functions. However, some challenges might arise and necessitate a review of the library’s resources and the skills of library professionals. Originality/value: This paper fills the lack of empirical studies analyzing the implementation of academic libraries’ cultural functions through social media accounts and contributes to the literature about the cultural functions of libraries in the digital environment. This paper can help those academic libraries wanting to leverage, bring innovation and increase their cultural functions in the digital environment through their social media accounts.