Class was really interesting. I enjoyed Paul Courant talking about the Digital Public Library and Google Books a lot. I also appreciated his opinion that the court was right to overturn the legislation, even though he was unhappy that they had. He seemed passionate about digital liraries but not so passionate that he was blind to other sides of it. Discussing embedded librarianship with our cohorts was interesting too. I actually like getting into the cohorts. We spend so much time reading each others' blog posts and commenting on them with no real interaction. It's nice to actually talk. Anyways, other than that, we also talked about what makes a good webinar. Once again I am very nervous but I'm sure it won't be so bad when we actually do it.
So Twitter... I am going to try not to judge it too soon. I have not been enjoying it so far but I have a feeling that I could get addicted to it if I let myself. I'm a little bit nosy and I love to know what is going on in people's lives... Particularly famous people's lives. There sure are a lot of famous people tweeting. I also love all the links that lead to interesting articles and fun stuff (both library related and not). I could, and probably will, waste tons of time just reading tweets, but I know that is not what this assignment is about. I know it is supposed to be about using Twitter as a professional tool and I'm not sure if I like it from that side. Certain people tweet a little too much and say things that I don't care about at all. But it is my choice to follow them so I can't really blame them. Just because they're librarians doesn't mean they have to say librarian-y things all the time. Still, having to sort through the meaningless (for me) tweets is time consuming and overwhelming.
As far as libraries having their own Twitter accounts, I'm not sure I see the point. With so many people tweeting multiple times in an hour, it seems like it is difficult for a library to keep up. For example, I am following the Howell Library and they tweet once a day, if that. Usually it is more like once a week. To me, it seems like they are just wasting time with that account. Their tweets just get lost unless I deliberately try to find them. I don't think most people would even think to try to find them, if they even started following them to start with.
Really though, my least favorite part is actually tweeting and retweeting. While other students in the class are fully embracing Twitter and just tweeting away, I am struggling to make it through just five tweets and retweets. I know that sounds ridiculous but I don't really have anything I personally want to tweet and I haven't come across too many things interesting or relevant enough to retweet. I guess I assume that the original tweeter probably reached way more people than I would so their tweet is doing just fine without my retweet. Plus I don't know them. I feel like it is creepy for me to be retweeting from people I don't know. I think all of this Twitter anxiety is just me though. I have never had a status on facebook, and I see that as very similar to tweets. It just feels like a lot of pressure, especially when people you don't really know are following you. I think the only real way to use Twitter as a networking tool is if you actively participate. As someone who would rather passively read others' tweets, it just isn't all that great.
In your example of the Howell Library's tweets, if they don't tweet once a day or so and you are following many people, their tweet probably will get lost. I think in order for Twitter to really be useful a person would need to check it multiple times a day. I admit, I check Facebook a few times a day, but I'm usually on it about 5 minutes or so. I think checking your tweets would take longer than that.
ReplyDeleteI wish there were a way, and maybe there is, to filter your tweets (or which tweets you receive from people) with some sort of tagging system. Sure, the hashtags sort of do that...but not really since they only let you find things on a topic, not eliminate everything else. Maybe there is some Twitter add-on thing that I'm not aware of because I'm a newbie... Anyway, my point is that I also found it frustrating to have to filter through a bunch of tweets that aren't professionally relevant.
ReplyDeleteI also struggled to get 5 relevant tweets out, but not because I had a shortage of things to say; it was more because I had a shortage of things I thought #si643 would want to hear about. Every time I saw an article or something that I liked, I would realize that it had been tweeted by someone with a ton of followers already, including a bunch of 643 folks. I'm happier just to lurk on twitter.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't believe you've never posted a facebook status update! Mark Zuckerberg is probably personally offended. :)