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Seeking out collective wisdom: cataloguers' use of social media

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the frequency with which Internet-based social media (namely, wikis, blogs, forums and electronic mailing lists) are used by cataloguers to seek what Judith Hopkins (2002) defines as “specific (and immediate) current awareness” and “general current awareness”. The aim is to provide some insight into whether social media play a part in day-to-day practice and on-the-job learning of cataloguers. Design/methodology/approach – A survey research was conducted. An online questionnaire was made available to self-selecting respondents via electronic mailing lists (AUTOCAT, CatSIG listserv, NZLibs listserv) and 176 responses were received. Findings – The study found that general current awareness information was more frequently sought via Internet-based social media than specific (and immediate) current awareness. A statistically significant, weak positive correlation was found between the variables of “number of cataloguers working in an organization” and “frequen...