More Things on a Stick: Thing 27-Twitter

Blog about the experience and be sure to post your Twitter username there so others can see it and follow you. Did you like micro-blogging? Do you love it, hate it or are you ambivalent? Explain.

I've been using Twitter since Fall of 2008, when I signed up for my Library 2.0 class, taught by Michael Stephens of Dominican University. You can find me on Twitter: i_am_lisa.

When I started, I didn't really get it, I'll be the first to admit it. And, it was frustrating to *find* people to follow. But then, I got to see how it really connected me and my classmates, especially when we were working on projects. After I figured out the basics, I grew to love it. I follow & am followed by people all over the world-seriously, how cool is that? I have people that I will probably never see in 'real life' that I banter with.

What I love about Twitter is that there are so many different people to follow and learn from. I envision it as a HUGE cocktail party at which I can flow in and out of groups as I wish, and it's not a big deal.

How else could libraries use Twitter? How could you use Twitter?

There are different libraries, librarians, book stores, publishers, book bloggers, and many other people that librarians can follow on Twitter. It's like a mini-RSS feed, and very useful. Sure there are lots of tutorials on how to use Twitter, but I think the best thing to do is to find people to follow, see who's following them, and go from there.

I use my Twitter account as a combination of things: communication tool, RSS feed, micro-blog (for the stuff I don't permanently want on my blog), and as a window to the whole world. People know I hop on and off during the day, and it's actually almost easier to tweet me than e-mail me, if they want me to see something quickly. I don't have a phone application that I use with it, but that's mainly because my cell phone would get way overwhelmed.

Twitter isn't for everyone, but it is definitely something that I'm glad I gave a whirl.