I had the good fortune during the last week to write collaboratively with Mary-Doug Wright of Apex Information. MD has been my colleague for years now so it was good to produce something together. We wrote about Twitter (see the abstract below).
To write it together, in a short timeframe, we used Googledocs which we both found quite unreliable. It was slow, not terribly accurate, and really bad when we worked on it at the same time. Google’s firepower is not sufficient to ensure that response times are reasonable, I guess.
I feel I learned a lot by working with Mary-Doug. She’s an ideal collaborator.
The FULL article will be published soon in the JCHLA/JABSC. ~Dean
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Twitter: an introduction to microblogging for health librarians – abstract only
by Dean Giustini and Mary-Doug Wright
“In this article, we introduce health librarians to Twitter and examine its potential (as well as its problems) as a platform for sharing and seeking online information. In focusing on many practical aspects of using Twitter we also critique microblogging as a way to broadcast what you are doing, thinking or saying. Twitter’s significance is greater than simply the diffusion of information within social networks; more generally, we believe that Twitter is increasingly symbolic of a tech-oriented culture engaged in constant peer-to-peer sharing, surveillance and mass collaboration. [3]
Twitter is a web 2.0 phenomenon with no signs of slowing down. Along with Jaiku and Plurk – two other popular microblogging tools – Twitter is riding a wave of enthusiasm around the world. [4] Twitter enjoyed exponential growth in popularity in 2008. As of January 2009, there were almost 4.5 million Twitter users worldwide. [5] This represents a massive 752 percent increase in 2008 alone.
According to Compete, a million new visitors viewed Twitter in December 2008. [6] In terms of increased numbers of users and hype, the rise of Twitter mirrors the interest shown in the past with other web 2.0 tools such as Facebook, Wikipedia and YouTube.
Is Twitter a useful communication tool for health librarians? A number of librarians are experimenting with microblogging, but we have noted a lack of participation among the health library community. [7,8] Although the use of Twitter was slow in 2007 and rose sharply in 2008, it will likely gain even more attention in 2009. [9] Twitter is representative of a new generation of information tools – including handhelds and mobiles like the iPhone and Blackberry – that help to promote ambient information access and ‘on the go’ communication. [10] “
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References
1. Twitter Fan wiki http://twitter.pbwiki.com/
2. Washburn S. Library Twitter. MaintainIT Project blog. June 24th, 2007. http://www.maintainitproject.org/blog/library-twitter
3. Java A, Finin T. Why we Twitter: understanding microblogging usage and communities. Proceedings of the Joint 9th WEBKDD and 1st SNA-KDD Workshop 2007, August 12, 2007. http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/_file_directory_/papers/369.pdf
4. Wikipedia. Twitter. 2009. [Online]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
5. Ostrow A. Mashable blog. All that’s new on the web. Twitter’s massive 2008: 752 percent growth. January 9th, 2009. http://mashable.com/2009/01/09/twitter-growth-2008/
6. State of the Twittersphere. Q4 2008. HubSpot. http://cdnqa.hubteam.com/State_of_the_Twittersphere_by_HubSpot_Q4-2008.pdf
7. Giustini D. ‘Maple Leaf’ Twitter: why aren’t more Canadian librarians on Twitter? UBC Google scholar blog. December 31st, 2008.
8. Wright MD. Of Canadian librarians and Twitter. meldinme blog. January 1st 2009
9. Basu D. Top 20 Twitter posts of 2008. Search Engine Journal. December 30, 2008 http://www.searchenginejournal.com/top-20-twitter-posts-of-2008/8221/
10. Webb K. Webb’s web: up for a little ambient intimacy? Incite May 2007; 28(5): 18-19.