Online professional communication among librarians

Abstract

The article attempts to relate digital citizenship research in Hungary to a sample of librarians, including a mapping of online professional communication. The survey used an online questionnaire in a cognitive field of Bloom’s extended taxonomy system. The responses came from 120 librarians, so the sample cannot be considered as representative. According to findings, librarians use first of all the Katalist mailing list (3463 subscribers) as an information source. Many consider incoming information too much and unorganized, the discussions – tedious and without consequences. They would prefer more information on good practices, trends, lobbying and the career opportunities of librarians. The other source of professional information, the Facebook group named Könyvtárosok (Librarians) has got cca. 3000 members. It covers mostly things of interest, and the information presented does not lead to discussions or co-operation. The reason for this may be that, as the respondents declared, they too share infrequently important information on listservs or with the Facebook group. Based on total scores of the questionnaire, most respondents belong to the medium category, only 5% take an active part in the online professional communication of librarians.