THE USE OF FACEBOOK FANPAGES BY POLISH UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES BEFORE AND DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. CONTENT ANALYSIS OF THE POSTS

Abstract

Thesis/Objective – The main aim of the article was to present the re- sults of the analysis of the content of posts made available by eighteen Polish uni- versity libraries in the period immediately preceding and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research methods – The mixed methods study involved the use of qualitative and quantitative approaches, with a commercial online tool the Karma Fanpage service for social media analytics monitoring being used to collect data from individual fanpages. In order to determine the subject matter of the posts, the author of the article used ten codes, to which he assigned each post. Results/ Conclusions – The study showed that all Polish university libraries (part of pub- lic universities) used Facebook as part of their daily activities, both before and during the pandemic. This included using if for marketing purposes, such as, promoting events they organized, and library offerings. In the period before the pandemic, the most frequent posts were related to various scientific, educational, and popularizing events. Most of events took place at the library building. The pandemic and the necessary precautions it provoked, made the remote services of libraries one of the key elements in their daily functioning. The greatest number of posts in the analyzed periods concerned library collections and services, main- ly those available online.