This slightly delayed blog post is dedicated to the theme of timeliness.
The study by Collins and Quan-Haase (2014) of Ontario academic libraries' social media adoption from April 2010 to April 2012 provides--in addition to some nostalgia-making reflections on which platforms were popular when--this caution: "[S]ocial media use by academic libraries requires content creators and distributors to be diligent" (p. 65). Librarians who would use social media must keep abreast of which sites their users use and for what.
The year prior, Comeaux and Schmetzke (2013) published a study of 56 North American academic library websites that were graded on their compliance with accessibility best practices over 10 years. They found great progress by some measures--errors per page, in particular--but caution that accessibility best practices had evolved, as has consumer technology. Again, librarians must keep up.
References
Collins, G., & Quan-Haase, A. (2014). Are social media ubiquitous in academic libraries? A
longitudinal study of adoption and usage patterns. Journal of Web Librarianship, 8, 48-68.
Comeaux, D., & Schmetzke, A. (2013). Accessibility of academic library web sites in North America: Current status and trends (2002-2012). Library Hi Tech, 31, 8-33.
