Tweet, Tweet!

Quick Facts

• According to a recent Pew Internet report, 13% of online adults use Twitter. 
• According to Bing Visual Search, the top 3 Twitter users are: Lady Gaga with over 13 million followers, Justin Bieber with more than 12 million, and Barack Obama with over 10 million. 
• According to the web information site Alexa, Twitter.com is one of the top ten global websites.

So, what do I think about Twitter?

Well, to start I am not a Twitter user, although I have an account. I don't Tweet or Follow. But I must admit people love Twitter and it has become a great way to connect, communicate, and promote. If I were a celebrity, a business, or a library I would be tweeting.

I wanted to look at the Twitter page of three libraries in the Los Angeles area to see what they are tweeting about. I found out that the LA County Public Library, USC Libraries and LA Law Library use Twitter. County of LA PL tweets about their news and programming; USC tweets about additions to their collections and today in history; LA Law tweets about their news and classes they offer (but they don't tweet frequently).

To get some ideas of advantages and disadvantages of using Twitter in a library I browsed an interesting article, Using Microblogging Tools for Library Services by Mary Hricko, published last year in the Journal of Library Administration. Here she talks about different micro-blogging platforms--not only Twitter--and gives an overview of their features. She also talks about the different ways libraries and librarians can use micro-blogging to "interact within the workplace and with patrons."


In addition, Hricko talks about the challenges (disadvantages) of using these tools, including the fact that open source technologies can easily disappear, and the challenge of assigning the task of keeping posts current and interesting to library staff members.