Mary-Doug and I finished writing our Twitter article about three weeks ago, but I am concerned that it is quickly going out of date. Yesterday, the Pew Internet group released a report entitled “Twitter and status updating” by Amanda Lenhart and Susannah Fox (the latter on my Twitter feed).
In the last few years, social media has given us all sorts of opportunities for sharing information about our work, our ideas and what we are doing. On Twitter, for example, users post messages about their status, their location and other projects. Some librarians have tried to use Twitter but abandon it because it takes time.
But have we really given Twitter a proper evaluation? Are academic librarians not ideally situated to evaluate information technologies such as Twitter?
According to Pew:
“The use of Twitter is highly intertwined with the use of other social media; both blogging and social network use increase the likelihood than an individual also uses Twitter. Twitter users and status updaters are also a mobile bunch; as a group they are much more likely to be using wireless technologies — laptops, handhelds and cell phones — for internet access, or cell phones for text messaging.”
Isn’t this – the Twitter trend – emblematic of the future of finding, sharing and using information? Shouldn’t librarians be a part of this future? . ~Dean