Resource Review #8

http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=107&sid=3102d7a6-8d1a-45da-8a26-a52f4a7ff88d%40sessionmgr110&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=lxh&AN=44668680

This resource is the Library Journal article"Power Tweeting: Next Steps" by Melissa Rethlefsen. The article describes a number of applications that can enhance one's Twitter use, including photo and screencast sharing, Twitter-linked chat, Twitter-to-Facebook integration, and tweet scheduling and tracking services.

This article is a collections of tips and tools for Twitter use, like many of the other resources I've found. But this article focuses on not on the basics but on more advanced ways to use the site. It's quite a recent article, from the issue published on October 15 of this year. I like Rethlefsen's mention of the fact that Library Journal first covered Twitter in July 2007, the site was still little known and very few libraries were using it. This article really brings home for me how rapidly Twitter has achieved it current popularity. Rethlefsen notes, "from its early beginnings as a microblogging application, Twitter morphed into a communications platform, a customer service portal, an answer engine, and a marketing haven."

Many of the tools mentioned here are fairly simple, and I think tweet scheduling in particular could be very helpful for staff managing a library's feed. But still, I would not particularly recommend this article as a resource for Twitter beginners. Certainly, there are still many librarians who haven't yet taken the first steps in the world of Twitter and other Web 2.0 tools, and who clearly aren't ready for the "next steps." Like Jeff Scott's blog post (discussed below), I could see this article also being quite intimidating for librarians who are not yet extremely comfortable with Web 2.0 phenomena. The focus on "Power Tweeting" certainly creates the rather depressing impression that plain "old" regular tweeting is no longer adequate.

Resource Review #7

http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/Insight/viewContentItem.do;jsessionid=971F022807CC06267FB83BF32FE29FC3?contentType=Article&contentId=1805540

This article, "Reference utility of social networking sites: options and functionality" by Heidi Steiner form the journal Library Hi Tech News, analyzes four social networking sites -- Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Ning -- with regard to their usefulness as library reference tools. Steiner finds that "Facebook provides the most promise and possibility as a reference utility." But she also notes that Twitter has a great deal of reference potential, primarily because of its simplicity in comparison to many other social networking sites.

I like this article because it analyzes Twitter in the context of other social networking sites, and it focuses solely on one library function, reference, rather than listing many different ways in which Twitter could be or is being used in libraries. I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion that Facebook has the most potential for reference use. To my mind, Facebook is much more about creating and viewing profiles, while Twitter's text-based approach seems to lend itself more to asking and answering questions. Steiner does mention the usefulness of the Facebook chat feature, but I think Twitter can also function essentially as a chat service as long as a librarian is logged in, monitoring the feed, and ready to answer questions as soon as they are tweeted.

This article, like at least one of my other resources, also mentions the privacy concerns that arise with using Twitter for reference. Tweets are available for anyone who has a Twitter account to see -- the question is, as Steiner puts it, "should reference questions and answers be available for all to read?" While many library users might not mind, certainly not all would want their references questions and answers to be quite so public. Steiner also points out that the 140-character limit for Tweets is too short to answer more complex reference questions. I think both of these are important issues that librarians need to keep in mind if they do choose to use Twitter for reference purposes.

Resource Review #6

http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=107&sid=a057ff7c-90e4-44db-b991-9ef521f5c44e%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=lxh&AN=45447265

This article, "Twitter lacks noise with serious readers: Heavy book buyers spurn social networking sites for book info" by Victoria Gallagher, comes from The Bookseller, a British publishing industry magazine. It describes the results of a poll done by the website Lovereading, which found that "only 17% of respondents found Twitter "useful" for [book] recommendations". Only 34% thought that social networking sites in general were useful for this purpose.

For this review, I've again chosen a resource that doesn't directly deal with Twitter in libraries. But from what I've seen in other resources and by following library Twitter feeds, it seems that book recommendations and other readers' advisory services are one of the main ways in which many libraries are currently using Twitter. This article would suggest that readers' advisory may not be a good way to use Twitter at all, if the vast majority of readers do not find Twitter book recommendations helpful.

Of course, this is still only one article, from one publishing industry magazine, based on the results of one website's poll -- so I certainly don't think the results should be given the same weight as, say, an academic study. But Twitter is still so new that it hasn't been the subject of all that much academic research yet. I think those of us interested in how Twitter is being used, and its successes or failures, have to be willing to consider any information we find.

It is also important to remember that this article does come from a source focused on the publishing and bookselling industries. The subtitle is important: "Heavy book buyers spurn social networking sites for book info." The article states that "Lovereading interviewed more than 1,300 people, the majority heavy book buyers, about their reading habits." There may be important differences in information-seeking behavior between people who primarily buy books and people who primarily read library books -- I think that would be a fascinating topic for future research. Twitter book recommendations coming from librarians, who could be seen as unbiased authorities, might have more weight than those coming from publishers, bookstores, or other sources. Also, there may be important differences between British and American readers.

Resource Review #5

http://gathernodust.blogspot.com/2007/04/twitter-update-or-how-i-was-able-to.html

This resource is a blog post called "Twitter Update or how I was able to exploit the latest social networking site without really trying" by Jeff Scott, Deputy Director of the Tulare County Library System in California. Scott admits that he was skeptical at first about how useful Twitter could be, but he goes on to explain how his library is now making use of Twitter. Scott's library had already used RSS feeds, a Google calendar, blogs, and photo-sharing accounts to produce and disseminate information. Scott discovered that, using http://twitterfeed.com/, he could easily combine the feeds from all of these tools into one Twitter feed, thus making it easier for library users to receive all of the information in one place.

So many of the other resources I've been able to find are basic introductions to Twitter for libraries, or tips for getting started using the site. I like this post because instead of just giving suggestions, it explains in detail how an actual librarian is currently using Twitter. I think it's also very interesting that this post is from April 29, 2007, over two and a half years ago. While that could make it dated, I still chose this resource because it shows that some cutting-edge librarians having been using Twitter succesfully for a long time now, even though it's taken quite a while to become more mainstream.

That said, although this post may be a library Twitter success story, I don't think it's one that all libraries could easily emulate. Using Twitter in the way that Scott describes depends on the preexisting use of many other Web 2.0 tools. It would be rather difficult for a library that is not already so technologically up-to-date or so invested in Web 2.0 tools to follow this example.

Resource Review #4

http://www.prsa.org/SearchResults/view/7813/105/In_the_driver_s_tweet_Making_the_most_of_140_chara

This piece, "In the drivers' tweet: Making the most of 140 characters," comes from PR Tactics, a publication of the Public Relations Society of America, and was written by Amy Jacques. The article focuses on the challenges and advantages of communicating in posts of 140 characters or less. Jacques quotes the advice of several professionals in the fields of public relations, communications, and journalism. The article stresses that word choice is incredibly important for professionals using Twitter, as is choosing content that will be interesting to potential readers.

While this article has a certain focus on the public relations field, the corporate world, and the promotion of brands, I still think it article offers some extremely helpful tips for libraries using Twitter. "Public relations" are of course, in a sense, the most important consideration for public libraries. And libraries have to focus on promoting their "brand" if they want to fulfill the goal of serving their users in the best way possible.

While probably every article written about Twitter mentions the 140-character limit for tweets, I like that this article takes that limit as its major subject. I think many beginning Twitter users don't realize what a challenge it is to communicate effectively in so few words. Also, I think that many users of social networking sites in general don't take their communication on these sites very seriously. They view their posts as a trivial, throw-away form of communication, and as this article mentions, the content is often mundane, irrelevant, and uninteresting to anyone but the poster. If Twitter is to be a useful tool for libraries, then the library staff members using the site absolutely need to take it seriously, and use carefully-chosen words to express carefully-chosen, relevant information.

Resource Review #3

http://www.vla.org/wordpress/?p=935

This resource is a list entitled "100 Ways To Use Twitter In Your Library." I found it on the Virginia Library Association Blog, but apparently it originally came from acceleratedbachelordegree.org. The list starts out with a basic introduction to Twitter and then gives tips in the categories of Reference, Discussion, Announcements & Updates, and Colleagues & Friends.

Some of the tips strike me as a little obvious, like number 12, "Don’t let the account go silent for extended periods: This will show that you have mutual interest in providing a connection for many of your followers." Others come across as a bit patronizing, like number 15, "Be sure to use the current twitter terminology: Remember the verb form is 'to tweet,' not 'to twitter.' If you use the wrong terms, you might as well put a sign on your website that says ROOKIE!" But on the whole, there are certainly enough very good suggestions on this list to make it a useful resource. Some interesting ideas I haven't really seen suggested elsewhere include "Get feedback on potential policy changes: Thinking about extending library hours? Get some opinions from some of your patrons;" "Use Twitter to point out highlights on library websites;" and "Search Twitter daily for mention of the library." Of course, it's important to remember that this list only offers suggestions, not any kind of requirements for Twitter use, and libraries should feel free to pick and choose among them. If anyone tried to do everything on this list in one Twitter feed, it would certainly overwhelm both the followers and the person responsible for tweeting.

I do think the list-makers are cheating a bit by filling up about two-thirds of this list with the names of interesting library-related Twitter feeds, Twitter tools, and vendors using Twitter. These aren't really "ways to use Twitter" as such, although they can still be helpful information for libraries using to Twitter to know. The list includes many interesting Twitter tools I'm not sure I'd heard of before; I think Tweet Later, for instance, could be an excellent timesaver for libraries tweeting event reminders. And before seeing this list, I hadn't really even thought about the possibility that library vendors are using Twitter, but it seems that at least about twenty-five of them are. I think this could potentially be a great new way for library staff and vendors to keep interacting, hopefully improving the customer service experience for everyone involved.

Further Observations

After continuing to follow several libraries and library-related Twitter feeds, I still feel that many libraries may not yet be using Twitter at its full potential. In many cases, libraries are using Twitter to post announcements and news, but I'm not seeing a great deal of evidence of sustained interactions with patrons via Twitter. Of course, this doesn't entirely mean that Twitter isn't "working" for libraries, but it certainly makes it hard to gauge the results of Twitter as an outreach effort.

I think the most active (as judged by frequency of tweets) public library I'm following is the Homewood Public Library in Homewood, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham. Judging from their website, they also seem to have a strong online presence in other ways: blogs, YouTube, and so on. It seems that in some cases, a particular web-savvy librarian or group of librarians will latch on to tools like Twitter and really try to make the most of them.

Some of the other Twitter feeds I'm following, those that are not directly affiliated with a single library, are also very interesting. I suspect that as it is currently being used, Twitter may be more effective as a professional development tool for librarians than as an outreach or public service tool for libraries. For instance, several different library publications, as well as several branches of the ALA, tweet links to library-related news stories. This can certainly be a very convenient way for librarians and other interested parties to keep up with news in the field, and I've noticed surprisingly little overlap among the stories posted by different sources. The greatest number of tweets coming across my Twitter page are from two library job listing feeds, GetLibraryJobs and Libgig_Jobs. For the librarian or library student who is an active Twitter user, these represent a wonderful way to stay informed about the job market without having to set aside time to visit job-posting websites.

Resource Review #2

http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2317/2063
"Social networks that matter: Twitter under the microscope" by Bernardo A. Huberman, Daniel M. Romero, and Fang Wu; First Monday, Volume 14, Number 1 - 5 January 2009

This resource is not directly related to libraries using Twitter. However, I still think it's very interesting and useful for this project. In this article from the online journal First Monday, the authors present the results of their study of over 300,000 Twitter users. The study found that the majority of Twitter users have far more followers and followees on the site than actual "friends" -- defined in the study as people who have communicated directly with each other via Twitter at least twice. Thus, the idea that a list of Twitter followers or followees can accurately represent a person's social network is untrue. A much more important and much smaller network underlies the "official" network, and is composed of the people who actually interact with each other via the service on a regular basis. As the article's Introduction puts it, "users faced with many daily tasks and large number of social links default to interacting with those few that matter and that reciprocate their attention."

Of course, these authors are primarily discussing social networking in terms of relationships between individuals, not between individuals and organizations. So why do I think this study is relevant to libraries using Twitter? The concept of a smaller network of truly important links underlying the larger social network still applies here. The number of Twitter followers a library has could be much less meaningful than the number of people who actually use Twitter to communicate or interact with the library. The library's actual "friends" may be a much smaller group than its Twitter followers.

I do not believe the results of this study would suggest that Twitter cannot be a useful tool for libraries, but rather that libraries cannot assume their list of followers tells the whole story. Paying attention to who really interacts with a library via Twitter could help the library staff identify some of the patrons who are truly invested in the library and who could be its strongest supporters. Thus it seems to me that it's very important for libraries who use Twitter not to simply use it as an announcement service and ignore it between postings of their own tweets, but to pay attention to their followers and be prompt in replying to any tweets directed at the library.

Resource Review #1

http://sites.google.com/site/whytwitterstls/home

This small website was the first resource I found for my project, and thus far I would still say it is the most helpful. It apparently was compiled by librarian Bill Drew, and dates from October 1, 2009. Thus it's an extremely recent resource, unlike some of the others I've found so far; in a rapidly developing field like social networking, a blog post from 2007 could certainly be very dated by now.

Drew's site is geared specifically toward public libraries and offers a simple, straightforward explanation of what Twitter is and how libraries can use it. Each section of the site is kept quite short; thus, it would be helpful but not overwhelming for librarians (or others) who are just being introduced to Twitter for the first time. Most pages of the site consist of lists of ideas or of links to other resources. I find many of these lists very useful; again, they are extensive, but not exhaustive or overwhelming. They also seem to be chosen with the beginner in mind. For instance, "Twitter Vocabulary and Abbreviations" is crucial information for a beginning Twitter user. And the lists in several sections of public libraries, librarians, and other people and organizations currently on Twitter offer an excellent base of feeds for new users to begin following. "Twitter Resources" gave me some helpful leads to follow in terms of finding more resources for this project; it provides many links that would be of use to public libraries just starting out on Twitter.

The site also provides a few amusing features like comics and a YouTube video about the general, not library-specific, uses of Twitter. I do find that the video tries a little too hard to "sell" Twitter. Perhaps I'm still just uncomfortable with the obsessive need to keep the world updated about mundane details of one's everyday life.

Preliminary Explorations in the Twitterverse

So, I've signed up for my Twitter account, and it's a crazy world out there. I've decided not to start tweeting (I still think that's a very silly word...) at the moment, as it would just become to much of a time drain for me. However, I've been following several public libraries' Twitter feeds, as well as some other interesting things I've come across, like library job announcement services and the Twitter feeds of Library Journal and ALA Booklist.

It looks to me like Twitter certainly has the potential to be a wonderful tool and resource for public libraries and librarians, but I wouldn't say that it's being used to its full potential yet. It seems that many libraries are using Twitter primarily to make announcements that could also be made, and probably are also being made, through other media; I can't say whether the Twitter posts are actually reaching a different audience. It seems, from my admittedly limited observations, that large metropolitan public libraries, like the New York Public Library or the Hennepin County Library, currently have a greater Twitter presence than small libraries. Since Twitter and other social networking sites are typically free, they shoudl theoretically be available for use in the same way by all libraries, but I suppose it's a question of staff time and availabilty. Perhaps larger libraries are also just more likely to be on top of trends like this one.

Resource reviews to follow shortly.

My Topic: Twitter and Libraries

I am going to be gathering and annotating resources about libraries' use of Twitter. I am particularly interested in public libraries, though I may also include some resources about academic, school, or special libraries. I'm interested in learning how libraries' use of Twitter may differ from their use of other social networking and Web 2.0 tools; how libraries' use of Twitter has changed and developed in the few years since this social networking tool was created; whether libraries primarily use Twitter as an attempt to reach out to teens and younger adults, and whether this is successful; what problems or complications may arise from libraries' use of Twitter; and other related issues.

Hello!

So, here's my brand new blog for LIS 644! It's the first one I've ever made. I'm not entirely sure what topic I'll be posting about yet, but I'm excited to get started.