This paper investigates how
academic librarians perceive the role of social networks in enhancing the
professional skills of library staff, and how they can be used to promote
library services. It is based on case study design in real organizational
settings, which are two academic libraries in Jordan, namely the University of
Jordan library and Al-Balqaa’ Applied University library. The authors used questionnaires
to collect the required data in order to investigate the perceptions of library
staff in relation to social networks and how they used social networks to
promote library services. The results indicate high awareness and extensive use
of social networks for professional development. However, it appears that
social networks were not fully exploited to promote library services. It was
noted that “job title” (staff position) was the only factor that affected the
results, while other factorssuch as gender, experience, frequency of use and
age had no effect on the results. It is concluded that academic libraries in
Jordan should make better use of social networks to promote library services.