Mobile phone text messaging use among university librarians of Lahore city

Short Message Service (SMS) has become a cheap and popular source of communication in today's society. The present study examines the mobile phone text messaging patterns of 96 university librarians from 29 public and private universities in Lahore, Pakistan. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire. Results indicate that university librarians use SMS tools, but do not prefer this technology as a means of communication through phone or e-mail. A majority of librarians use SMS to connect with friends/relatives or for entertainment purposes. They rarely use SMS to communicate with library users, professional colleagues, or administration.

► A very low trend of SMS usage was indicated among librarians related to their job, users and professional activities.
► Librarians' used SMS mostly for their interaction with relatives/ friends and for entertainment purposes.
► Librarians' can build their image and visibility among users by adopting low cost SMS services for communication and can save their time and energy.