Use of Social Networks and Media Hosting by Libraries

The purpose of the article is to study library activities and use different types of social media, identifying the specifics of certain types of social networks and working with them. Overview of modern domestic and foreign libraries experience in using social media, the main modern trends of development of library interactive space are described. The article identifies two groups of the most popular social media that domestic and foreign libraries use: social networks that provide communication with users (for example, Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Tumblr) and media hosting, which are primarily tools of posting materials (for example, YouTube, Pinterest, SlideShare, Flickr, Instagram, iTunes). Criteria for the analysis of social media as a source base for library research have been developed and applied to identify general trends in the functioning of library in social media were: presentation of information about the library, centralization / dispersion, content, intensity of feedback. The study revealed a wide range of information posted by libraries in social media and differentiation of messages in social networks - provision of various information by libraries for different networks and services depending on the purpose of networks. On the basis of the conducted research it is offered to libraries to abandon unified information for all types of social media though strategy and labor-intensive is presented, but it is justified as increases efficiency of library representation in social media. The prospects for the development of library representation in the interactive media environment are defined: the creation of a system of libraries representation that could be used by libraries in social media, that is, the accumulation of unique information in various social media - social networks, collaborative projects, virtual worlds, blogs; integration of social media and library websites into universal network information and communication centres for accumulation of information and provision of access to information resources.