Web 2.0 Tool Review: Twitter in the Library
What is Twitter all about?
Twitter is a micro blogging and social networking service that’s easy to use and best of all — free. It allows members to post short messages that are 140 characters or less to their accounts.
The social element of Twitter allows users to follow each other and monitor each other’s messages. David Leeking suggests to “think of Twitter like a personal IM account that can be shared with everyone.”
In essence, Twitter is a way to communicate and connect with others, but it’s also a great marketing and publicity tool and so much more.
How is Twitter being used?
Twitter is being used by individuals, groups, organizations and companies in many different ways. Most commonly Twitter is used:
- as an information resource
- as a communication platform
- as a self-promotion and publicity tool
- as a sales and marketing tool
Here are a few examples of how Twitter is being used by librarians:
• @BALTeenZone
The Barrington Area Library in Illinois has a Teen Zone Twitter account which is primarily used as an information resource for teens. @BALTeenZone tweets updates on book recommendations, events, programs, interesting websites to check out and other related information for teens.
• @aadl
The Ann Arbor District Library (@aadl) uses Twitter mostly to promote their programs and services and also to provide useful information for the library’s patrons.
• @askundergrad
The undergraduate library at the University of Urbana-Champaign is utilizing Twitter on their website as alerts for students. This has made updating that area of the website that much easier; all a librarian has to do is tweet the message and it is automatically added to the sidebar on the site. Of course, students can also follow @askundergrad with their own Twitter account.
• @shifted
Jenny Levine, the Shifted Librarian, uses Twitter to connect with her blog readers, colleagues and others. Her account @shifted is a perfect example of a Twitter conversation.
