Arab academic libraries engagement on the social web : an exploratory study

الملخص EN

A tremendous amount has been written about the importance of social network sites as platforms that can be used by academic libraries to connect with a diverse community, increase the outreach and the presence of the libraries on the digital space.

however, despite the increased interest in social networks and libraries, Arab academic libraries did not receive much attention from scholars.

the current study seeks to shed light on the current situation of the Arab academic libraries and the progress they have made on the social web.

the results of the study reveal that Arab academic libraries are not giving much attention to SNS.

even the libraries which are utilizing these platforms are having many obstacles that demolish their efforts.

the limitation of this study is that it has been conducted on 15 libraries in three Arab countries; further studies that explore larger samples are needed to fully understand how Arab libraries are dealing with the social web.