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Introduction
University libraries in Malaysia, like many others worldwide, are equipped with public computing facilities, such as high-speed internet-enabled computers and high-end workstations installed with internet browsers, a variety of plug-ins, a wide range of software programs, the latest Microsoft Windows and Office Suite, Wi-Fi zones with power-charging points for personal laptops and notebooks, information kiosks and more. The computing facilities are freely accessible to all students, faculty members and staff and allow connections to networked resources through individually assigned usernames and passwords, while public visitors may login by requesting temporary authenticated access at a library service desk. Library patrons can also access the Online Public Access Catalogue to search for books or information sources and to search and view full text digitized content. Coonin and Younce (2010, p. 118) wrote that "open access publishing is now an accepted method of scholarly communication, although penetration of open access publishing has been much slower among the social sciences".
Library patrons use public computing facilities to retrieve information and acquire knowledge which effectively supports advanced learning, instruction and research processes by searching the internet and electronic databases (Phillips, 2011). Earlier studies (Brophy and Bawden, 2005; Sorensen and Dahl, 2008) reported that library databases are superior for quality academic information. The Gates Foundation testified that 77 million Americans use library resources to access the internet (Becker et al. , 2010). Encouragingly, 40 per cent of library patrons use public computing facilities at the library for reasons, such as career and employment needs, through an evaluation of potential employer profiles on social networking sites (SNSs) available on the internet. SNSs used by respondents in the study included Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, Flickr and Twitter. Forty-two per cent of the surveyed population used libraries for education and training needs (ALA, 2008).
University libraries use Facebook to provide an interactive method of staying in close contact with students and to issue current information which can be accessed via public computing facilities at the library (Phillips, 2011; Riza Ayu and Abrizah, 2011). Libraries using SNSs provide an interactive environment for their clients which allows for the dissemination of new products and information services to their users (Singh and Gill, 2015) and virtual reference (Graham et al. , 2009; Reichardt, 2008)....