Twit or tweet?

Well, twitter’s a nice little site, isn’t it? Having previously blogged about my reluctance to join up and start “tweeting” (may as well get down with the lingo), I now can see why it’s taken the virtual world by storm. On one hand, it is (as one fellow Oxford 23 Thing-er has already blogged) very much like the status feature on facebook, where you write a short description about what you are doing for others to comment on. I feel it falls somewhere between that and text messaging, with a few little bells and whistles thrown in for good measure. Really, though, the beauty of twitter is in its simplicity. You may only say a few words on a particular subject, and you may link to a picture or a web page, and you may share it with all, but there’s no room for getting bogged down in lengthy discussion. There are plenty of tools available for more elaborate forms of expression and conversation, forums and blogs among them, so it’s nice to have a simpler, less time-consuming alternative.

My limited experience with twitter so far has been positive. It’s a very attractive and easy-to-navigate site, and signing up was pain-free. Once again, the ability to trawl through my gmail account for potential contacts was a useful feature. I have found searching for other users much easier than, say, linkedin (which was, frankly, abysmal) and I have had a fairly successful match rate. I didn’t really know how twitter worked and have been confused in the past by the @ symbols peppering people’s posts, so I had to read the instructions pretty carefully and actually learn how to use it. I must say I feel a little bit old for this one (and I’m not out of my twenties, yet!) and it really does feel like it’s what the kids are using, but it’s straightforward, easy, and I can see how it would be fun. I had no real problem getting my head around the concept and have followed a few people, replied to a few posts and even had a go at retweeting with no real hassle.

I was pleased to see that there is a CILIP twitter account, which can be followed, that posts lots of interesting links that might be of interest to librarians. This way, I was able to find a story of interest from the guardian entitled, “Libraries are vital community hubs”. I then “retweeted” for all my (vast, many) followers to read. Admittedly, I couldn’t figure out how to add the #ox23 hash tag for all participants in this programme to read, but still, I think this gives a good indication of how twitter could be used to benefit library-based folk such as our good selves.