Social media in higher education: a new “collegiality” for students and researchers? The case of Italian LIS studies

The case of Italian Library and Information Science studies is analyzed to understand the level and nature of use of social networks in a small area of Social sciences and humanities. We explored the presence of ten Italian LIS tenured researchers and university professors on six different social platforms (Mendeley, Academia.edu, ResearchGate, Slideshare, LinkedIn, Twitter) selected according to the kind of tool, level of national use, relevance to academic field. The data collected in September 2016 and updated in March 2018 shows a limited presence of Italian LIS tenured researchers and university professors on social media. However, the function of academic social networks appears of much interest for the establishment of relations among scholars working in different subject fields and between experienced scholars and younger researchers.