Twitter: A Librarian’s Starting Place

A workshop by Scott Kehoe, Advisor/Technical Specialist, MLS

Creating an Account

Go to www.twitter.com to create an account.
After creating an account, find some people to follow.
- If you already know somebody on Twitter, follow them and see who they are following.
- On Twitter website, click on Find People, then Browse Suggestions, then choose a category.
- Google your favorite news organizations and add the word Twitter to see if they have an account.
- Find other librarians to follow on Fridays by tracking the #followalibrarian hashtag.
Recommendations:
- ALA Tech Source - http://twitter.com/ALA_TechSource
- American Libraries – http://twitter.com/amlibraries
- LISNews – http://twitter.com/LISNews
- Massachusetts Trial Court Libraries - http://twitter.com/masslawlib
- Mass. Library Systems – following every library they can find on Twitter and posting workshop notices and blog updates from staff. See the a library Twitter page in action on YouTube here.

Libraries on Twitter

Libraries using Twitter from Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki
Twittering Libraries Wiki from Florida State Univ., Fall 2008. A class project with case studies.
Cleveland Public Library
Duxbury Free Library
Nebraska Library Commission
Presque Isle, Maine Library
Providence Public Library – an example of how a library can use Twitter Feed to collect the feeds of several blogs into one Twitter account.
Thayer Public Library, Braintree
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Undergraduate Library
Waubonsee Community College, Sugar Grove, IL – they tweet when new books are checked out!
Whitman Public Library

Accessing Your Twitter Account

Most people do not use the Twitter Web Site to access their Twitter account. You can have Tweets delivered to your cell phone via text messaging, you can download a desktop application to manage your Tweets, or you can add an app to your smartphone.

Desktop Applications

Echofon for Firefox (formerly TwitterFox) – http://twitterfox.net/ – Firefox extension to access Twitter FREE
Echofon for Mac – http://echofon.com/twitter/mac/ – Mac only FREE (preview version)
Seesmic Desktop – http://seesmic.com/seesmic_desktop/air/ – Windows & Mac using Adobe Air FREE
Seesmic Look – http://seesmic.com/look/ – Windows only using .NET Framework 3.5 FREE
Seesmic for Windows – http://seesmic.com/seesmic_desktop/windows/ – Windows only FREE
Snitter – http://getsnitter.com/ – Windows & Mac using Adobe Air FREE
Tweetdeck – www.tweetdeck.com – Windows, Mac & Linux using Adobe Air FREE
Tweetie – http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/ – Mac only FREE (with ads)
Twhirl – http://www.twhirl.org/ – Windows & Mac using Adobe Air FREE
TwitterBar – http://www.chrisfinke.com/addons/twitterbar/ -Firefox extension, tweet from address bar FREE
Twittergadget – http://www.twittergadget.com/ – plug-in for Google Wave, GMail, and iGoogle FREE
Twitterrific – http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific/ – Mac only using Adobe Air

Mobile Applications

Echofon – http://echofon.com/twitter/iphone/ – iPhone & iPod Touch FREE
Seesmic On The Go – http://seesmic.com/seesmic_mobile/ – Android & BlackBerry
Tweetdeck – http://www.tweetdeck.com/iphone – iPhone & iPod Touch FREE
Tweetie2 – http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-iphone/ – iPhone & iPod Touch
Twitterific – http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific - iPhone & iPod Touch FREE (with ads)
Twitter for iPhone – http://itunes.apple.com/app/twitter/- the OFFICIAL Twitter app FREE

Twitter Utilities

Additional applications or websites that help make Twitter even better!

URL Shorteners

If you use one of the above desktop or mobile apps URL shortening may already be built in.
Otherwise, try one of these popular shorteners:

Bit.ly – Bit.ly can keep statistics on how many people click your link.
TinyURL – the first popular URL shortening service.

Photo sharing services

Free sites that host images for Twitter accounts

img.ly
posterous
Twitgoo
TwitPic
yfrog
Comparison of popular image services:
Twitpic vs. Twitgoo vs. yfrog vs. img.ly

Editing your Twitter website

Twilk – takes the icons/images of your followers and who you follow, and puts them on your Twitter background.

RSS feeds to your Twitter account

twitterfeed – send your RSS feeds form blogs or EventKeepr to your Twitter account.

Archiving & Sharing

10 Ways to Archive Your Tweets – a very helpful post on archiving apps from the ReadWriteWeb blog.
Amplify – a browser plug-in allows you to send clips or images from websites to Twitter.
BirdHerd – a way for mulitple users to update a single Twitter account.
FileTwt – upload and tweet your files.
Tweetdoc – brings together all the tweets from a particular event allowing you to keep a record of an event.
Twitter Widgets – display Twitter updates on your website, Facebook, or MySpace.
TwitAlbums – your tweets plus photos, videos, music and comments only for those you invite.
TwitDoc – share your documents via Twitter.
Twitgether – a Twitter plug-in for other social network Google sites (Facebook, GMail, iGoogle, MySpace).
Twitoaster – claims to do a whole bunch of things: threads, archives, searches, and provides stats & analytics.
Twitter your books to LibraryThing – add books (with tags) to your LT account or to your LT wishlist.

Keep on Top of Trending Topics

Twitter users utilize hashtags to post Tweets on a particular topic. It makes it easier to find posts on the same topics.

The Twitter home page highlights keywords that are popular in Twitter posts at any particular moment.
Use Twitter search – http://search.twitter.com – and to see if anyone is talking about your library on Twitter.
Bing has introduced Twitter search at http://www.bing.com/twitter. Google is planning to implement Twitter Search too.

MLS

Making Libraries Stronger