Friday, September 11, 2009

Library Tweets


My cell phone functions as ... a phone. And a camera. And that's it. I don't have a texting plan or an automatic link to the Internet. I do have a Twitter account and I tweet every week or so, but mainly just to update my Facebook status. I follow very few folks because the only time I can read their tweets is when I log on to my Twitter account to add an update - ie, every week or so.

However little use Twitter has for me personally at the moment, I can see fascinating applications for library systems. Kelly D. Allen lays them out here, just in case you (or your library system - or MY library system) need convincing. (Thanks to Librarian in Black for the link)

And here's an oldie-but-goodie post from David Lee King on Twitter Explained for Librarians.

The burning question I have is "If my library system decided to use Twitter, who on earth would write the tweets??" Someone in PR? Hmm.... Someone in our "Information Technologies" department? Yikes! I like the idea of several different folks from various departments (children's services, YA services, adult services, branch library services, and more) having the responsibility for writing fun, creative, and informative tweets. "Tweet-duty" could even rotate among interested staff members.

Perhaps our new library director, Martín Gomez, will make it happen...

3 comments:

  1. Other city departments are already major players in social networking. LAFD and LAPD have huge presences on Twitter and Facebook.

    See this example of how LAFD twitter is already part of Los Angeles culture.
    http://laist.com/2008/10/03/lafd_and_twitter.php

    We're the information professionals of Los Angeles, and we aren't providing this kind of service? ...

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  2. Somehow, I can't picture it happening. It feels like there are so many technophobes in the system who just see social media as a time-waster. And there's a fear of loss of control... you can never predict what a random member of the public might post in an online forum.

    I feel the strengths of Twitter are that it provides immediate, honest, funny, "warts and all" look at the people and institutions that use it. I shudder to think of what kind of byzantine system we'd have to set up to get approval to tweet about innocuous things like upcoming programs.

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  3. Yes, there's that scary word "guidelines" (defined as "all the many cool and creative things you are NOT allowed to do")...

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