I must admit that I was concerned about the appropriateness and, perhaps, limited value of twitteroutside of social networking, but Phil Bradley's blog entry on the usefulness of twitter in a library context is really insightful. I would recommend that everyone take a look at it. His ideas about using twitter to give general updates about opening/closing times, staff information, providing news alerts through RSS feeds directed to twitter, and sharing best practice with other libraries are inspiring. Personally, I was thinking about not joining twitter because of the constant need to update my status, and the sluggish nature of my dial up internet connection. However, I will investigate this and possibly try to be as tech-savvy as Amy and add the RSS feed to my blog.
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I did read the article you suggested. The writer has some good ideas as to how Twitter could be used but I cannot help but feel that the type of information would be better presented in an environment similar to LinkedIn. There are issues related to who can actually see the Twitter feeds.
ReplyDeleteI agree, LinkedIn is a far more serious and professional networking site and probably achieves more of the outcomes library staff would be aiming for than twitter. The value of twitter beyond a social networking technology will be seen as it is used more often by people in a professional context (if it is...).
ReplyDeleteFrom what you've said it seems that the ideas that Phil Bradley puts forward about how Twitter can be used in a library context are similar to those recommended by the librarian from Casey-Cardinia in Centre Man last week. I wonder though, whether library patrons want to use Twitter in this way?
ReplyDeleteI guess it depends on the demographic of the library in question. Perhaps libraries with a large youth client base would benefit most from incorporating an application like Twitter into their repertoire of Web 2.0 applications?
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