Twitter And Its Value To Librarians

Twitter and Its Value To Librarians - The Rise Of The Microblogging Service Phil Bradley LIS 2009

Twitter is a microblogging resource with a character limit of 140 characters per message, or 'tweet' as they are generally referred to.
In answer to the question 'What are you doing?' users are free to type in anything that they choose; silly, serious, inane, important etc

People will 'follow' other people, and will be 'followed' in turn. This means that you can see their 'tweets' and they can see yours.
It's also possible to import links to blog posts, images, sound files into your 'twitter stream' or to export tweets to your website/weblog

Users can 'Re-Tweet' posts, which is to say copy and paste a tweet from someone they follow to their followers to propagate a message
The use of self/group defined #hashtags makes it much easier to search for, and follow tweets about a specific subject or conference

How can librarians use Twitter?
Allows you to keep in contact with colleagues, to see what they're doing, what their interests are, read their opinions/thoughts/ideas

Keep informed about developments from publishers; both in terms of what they're publishing, but also events they're running

You can promote what your library service is doing. Attract new users, offer gifts or incentives, increase awareness and have fun!

Provide instant answers and point people in the right direction

Follow links to events, keep briefed on current affairs

Use Twitter as an RSS reader to keep up to date with blog entries

Share photographs quickly and easily, especially if using a smartphone

Ask questions using polls, Re-Tweet for maximum results

Keep involved with conferences even if you can’t attend them with 3 rd party sites

Add short (3 minute) audio posts using Audioboo and add in a photograph as well!

Broaden your knowledge of a subject by following the right people/organizations

Ask questions! Answer questions!

Find new people to follow using Twitter search or 3 rd party sites like WeFollow

Communicate more effectively
Discuss events as they happen
Send people Direct Messages

Follow authors

Follow dead people

And more...
Networking, both professional, friend to friend
News: new books, closing early, new staff
Marketing tool
Broadcasting content
Updating a website via Twitter

Advantages
Free
Fast
Simple
Effective
Brevity
‘ Always on’
Instant information

Disadvantages
Media hype
‘ Fail Whale’
Brevity (what can you say in 140 characters?)
Small number of users
Spam
3 rd party applications
Viruses

6 things when getting started...

Directories to find people
http://wefollow.com
http://mrtweet.net
http://www.twibes.com/
http://justtweetit.com/
http://www.twellow.com/

Not forgetting...
http://www.twitter.com/philbradley
Thank you!

Thanks to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hansdorsch/1807996676/ for the Twitter/iPhone image

http://stks.or.th	35
http://bibliofilmes.blogspot.com	24
http://www.joeyanne.co.uk	18
http://rbep.blogspot.com	6
http://ilibwiki.pbworks.com	4
http://www.slideshare.net	4
http://bibliofilmes.blogspot.com.br	4
http://ncrcbiblioteka.blogspot.com	3
http://www.stks.or.th	3

Twitter And Its Value To Librarians

by Phil Bradley on Jun 09, 2009

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Twitter And Its Value To Librarians — Presentation Transcript