Facebook: a Powerful Online Tool of Information Sharing and Dissemination |

ABSTRACT:

The present internet era is characterized with many newinnovative tools. Over the year we have been experiencing the internet playingmany of roles as a new medium of communication: vehicle for onlinedissemination of news and views: platform for e-commerce, e-learning, e-libraryetc. facebook is one of the fastest growing social networking sites. Academiclibrarians need to pay attention to the trends and behaviors of the students. Evidence suggests that students are increasingly usingthe Internet to conduct research for classes and to socialize with each other.Social networking websites, particularly Facebook, play an important role inmany college students’ lives and should not be ignored by informationprofessionals, especially public service academic librarians. Facebook providesa preexisting online community that reflects the real campus community, whichlibrarians can utilize to better understand students and to offer useful andapplicable library services. This paper is an attempt to describe the meaning anddefinition of facebook as a online phenomenon of the internet world. The originand growth of facebook with historical perspective has been discussed indetail. An account of the role of facebook in the context of library andinformation science has been described.