WebJunction

Twitter is something else, indeed. I've thought about using it in our Learning Commons to provide up-to-the-minute news about outages, lines, problems, etc....thinking maybe we could embed the Twitter feed in a sidebar on our webpage or blog, or something. Staff would have to be meticulous about updating, though--we wouldn't want to post something like "Both library printers are down" and then leave it up there for a week!

In the meantime, I'm using it for fun and to follow the Red Sox--there's someone who Twittercasts Sox games!

Anyone else have possible or actual uses of Twitter in libraries they'd like to share?

Actually Chrystie, it was your "Do you follow me" widget on IAG that pulled me into Twitter in the first place. And my trepidation at having someone end up following me was actually that I started following one of your friends and was embarrassed when they followed me back--the horror of thinking that a person I respect from afar may end up with my silly twits.

I think I need to find a few "anonymous" friends until I get more used to twitter--like the twittercast of Red Sox games that ealling mentioned. I did find my way to TwitLit, though I think I figured out that resulted in my getting a couple of unsolicited followers.

I admire the fact that ealling is trying to discover appropriate uses for libraries while I am probably just looking for fun ways to increase my Web 2.0 quotient

Aside from natural diffidence (what I think of as shyness mixed with aggression), I also realize that I would be more a-twitter if I was at all adept at texting.

Maybe I need a new phone--technolust is always good for something! but then I am back to my conundrum of how to get all of the functions I want (good keyboard, wifi, decent display) from a service provider that actually works in the hinterlands of VT where I live....

For the moment, I'll stick with twitting for a bit and see if I can get past my diffidence. At least I might get a new phone out of it

robin, so glad to see you post your twitter acct here. i will follow you! (twitter appears to be slow at the moment, but i will follow you when it's back up and running!) it's also great to hear that you're also using your twitter account for library advertising. it's so much fun watching libraries use (and try) social networking tools in unique ways.

and sheila, when you're ready, i will follow you too! as for the phone: i have sprint sms service (unlimited texting) and a treo (with full qwerty keys) and so i think that helped me adapt very quickly to the twitter/mobile environment. as i said in my original post, i never, ever thought i would be one of those mobile online community people, but, here i am.

should WJ go mobile? how? it might be fun to see if we could, through RSS, syndicate one of our threads through a WJ twitter account. robin, is that possible based on what you've learned w/ your library account??

very, very interesting. i am going to think about how we might use this (no ideas immediately come to mind as a "that's it!" but I do think we should try something out...)

would you be willing/interested in writing up a short description of how your library is using twitter (or other social networking tools) for WJ - come to think of it, I might want to ask you a few questions for my book as well. maybe we should feature some ideas on how to use twitter (for professional development or for your library marketing) on WJ? we do have a general "what is twitter?" article waiting in the wings, we just need to publish it.

sheila, one thing you might consider is closing down your twitter account until you get the hang of it and get your posts in the groove you'd like them to be in. rachel did that and it seemed to work out well for her, but she's public with it now i think.

i like the way you think, robin hastings! but, i guess i already knew that!

seriously, a three paragraph description of how your library is using twitter, your purpose in doing so, what you've learned, and/or how the community has responded (if, how) would do the trick. our purpose in publishing it would be to simply give folk some fodder for making the decision on whether or not it makes sense for them. twitter's pretty young, so, we're lucky to have the opportunity to learn from an early adopter! ;)

Okay Chrystie, I will take the plunge, I am http://www.twitter.com/smkvt

Robin, I had yet to discover the various ways to twitter by feeding into it. I wil definitely look more closely for that.

It's kind of fun to know that my trepidation about twitter has become the occasion of this exchange. I hope I can keep up to "follow" what happens from here.

Since my initial post about being somewhat "scared" by twitter, I've started to use it fairly frequently now, but mostly for personal stuff, though a number of the twitter users that I follow are library bloggers I keep track of and whose twitter profiles do not require a direct request to "follow" them. I read their tweets because they are a bit like a micro-blog.

Another way that I have seen folks address the "where is Jane or John" issue is regular IM with frequent updates to the "status." Along the same lines, if you are using IM you might also want to start using Meebo (www.meebo.com). You can use it as your IM client for just about any IM platform (AOL, Yahoo, GoogleTalk), but you can also make a widget to post on your website that will allow anyome to IM you and will tell them whether or not you are online/available.

The example that comes to mind immediately is the "talk to Sarah" meebo widget on the LibrarianInBlack blog: http://librarianinblack.typepad.com

Anyway, I added you to the folks I follow on twitter and feel free to "follow me back"--my post are pretty mundane, so don't feel compelled.

Do however, keep us posted on where you go with twitter or any other social software you end up using for your library.
all the best
Sheila