Simon Chamberlain’s library weblog

Getting started on Twitter, professionally

I’ve been using Twitter casually for a year or two, but purely as a way of keeping up an ongoing, semi-random conversation with a group of friends, almost all in the USA, some of whom I’ve met, some I haven’t. I was most definitely not using it for anything professional. But now that I’m trying to get back into blogging and professional reading and all that good stuff, I thought I’d better look at whether Twitter would be of any use to me.

So, I leave the old account for my personal conversations (and switch emails so that the random librarians who were finding me via my email address now get my professional account instead) and start up a new account. Slight annoyance: I can’t use my full name (the curse of the 11-letter surname). SChamberlain and S_Chamberlain are taken so I have to default to the clumsy use of both initials. My fault for not being an early adopter.

Finding people to subscribe to was a lot easier than I thought. Twitter suggested I follow some librarians that were in my email contacts list, and from looking at their followed list I could easily identify another 50 to follow (either because I recognised the names or because they had ‘librarian’ somewhere in their user name, or because they represented a blog or company like Read Write Web or Yahoo).

I’ve been on less than a day and I can already see how compelling and how useful this is. I’m picking up blog posts from sites that I wouldn’t bother to subscribe to in Google Reader, but that I’m happy to read tweets from (figuring that tweets are easier to skim over; the transaction cost of following on Twitter is less than the cost of subscribing to hundreds of blogs and having to read through thousands of posts if I miss a few days).

Will have to lurk a while and watch the back and forth of conversation before leaping in. But so far, I’m liking this.

Some interesting posts on Twitter from the last few months, some of which were influential in me signing up:

• Twitter: Your First 24 Hours (Phil Bradley)

• Twitter on ALA, and Some Advice (The Shifted Librarian)
• WeFollow – user powered Twitter Directory (Phil Bradley)
• Netvibes and Twitter and Multiple Accounts (Phil Bradley again) – I’m definitely going to need this – logging in and out of Twitter accounts is annoying
• TTwitter – Zero to Amazing in 30 days (Chris Oien, guest post at Tame The Web) – a great post that was instrumental in inspiring me
• Four Ways Companies Use Twitter for Business (Read Write Web). In another article on RWW, the author says that he would pay at least $50/month for his Twitter account.
• What Does that Hashtag Mean? (RWW again, explaining how to find out what different # (hashtags) stand for)
• Finally, a poll from Law Librarian Blog which shows that the majority of law librarians do not use Twitter

I’m clearing out my Google Reader ‘to read’ list and posting quick links to anything that still looks interesting…some of this is kinda old.  Also playing around with themes on the blog itself, and I upgraded to the latest WordPress, which looks great…

Comments should be turned back on now, as well.

Interesting article from Read Write Web, noting that search queries are getting longer, or, at least, that the number of 7 word or 8+ word search queries has increased. Worth pointing out that though the increases are reasonably large in percentage terms (12% and 22% respectively) they are small in real terms – only around 6% of all queries are 7 words or longer. A case of increasing sophistication among search users, or the opposite – users typing in long and unformed questions? One commenter suggests autocomplete could be the reason, noting that typing curi in Google will give you the option of ‘curious case of Benjamin Button’. This makes sense – pre autocomplete, I’d bet a number of searches would type curious case button or some similar combination of words from the title, knowing that such a search would be ‘good enough’.

The article also points to an increase in the use of Google, from 66% market share to 72% between Jan 2008 and Jan 2009.

RWW also reports that citation manager Zotero is embracing cloud features, enabling users to sync between machines and backup their databases automatically online. More interestingly, it’s enabling social networking so you can connect with other users.

A poll on Law Librarian Blog indicates, unsurprisingly, that most law libraries are expecting budget cuts over one or both of the next two years, and most expect to manage this by cutting collections.

Techdirt has an article arguing that social pressure can solve the problems of copying/copyright infringement, even without the existence of formal copyright measures. I’m not sure that I totally agree, though they use an interesting example of online copying of content from Metafilter to another website. It’s mainly of interest to me because I’ve met the Metafilter member whose work was copied.

Techdirt also argues that the Google Books settlement was a bad move, because it has priced other players out of the market for scanning and indexing books. The argument being that prior to the settlement, there was at least an argument that such scanning could be fair use. Now that Google has set a price, it indicates that any other market entrant would have to pay a similar price. The result is an effective monopoly for Google.

Another Techdirt article discusses the Wall Street Journal getting rid of its research librarian. I won’t preach to the choir here, but note that the comments are (a) mostly supportive of the work that special librarians do and/or (b) posted by librarians [depending on how cynical you feel].

Interesting article on copyright in the age of YouTube, from the ABA Journal, via Law Librarian Blog. The article discusses fair use considerations in relation to YouTube takedown notices, safe harbour provisions under the DMCA, and discusses various recent cases.

Mary Ellen Bates has a nice article in Information Today titled ‘living large in lean times‘. Her advice includes looking at the long-term, thinking strategically and emphasising how your library/information centre adds value and is seen as a revenue-generating function. She also gives some useful advice on how to cut back on non-essential items in your budget. Worth a read for all of us, especially relevant for me right now, as my firm is introducing a ~10% reduction in business services staff…  

Tame The Web has a post on the use of Twitter for internal communication.  Sounds like it could work better than IM, which was something we’re thinking of using at MPOW.

Legally Minded  is social networking for US lawyers. It also has resources about technology, careers etc. Could be interesting – it’s not just targeted at lawyers but at all legal workers (librarians aren’t mentioned specifically, but I’m sure we’re in there under ‘legal support staff). Via OPL Plus.  Another potentially interesting site is Rate A Partner, where lawyers and clients can rate the partners of different law firms. Given that it’s anonymous, it’s hard to see how useful it could be (the obvious risk being that disgruntled employees could misrepresent their own firm’s partners, or that rivals could do the same thing…users would have know way of knowing if any criticism was legitimate).

Google has changed its search options so you can rank your results (obviously, you need to be logged in). I’ve used this a little bit, just to tweak results so they’re more useful for me. For example when I search Law Library of Congress, I really want the LLC’s ‘Guide to Law Online’, but I can never remember what it’s called. Of course, when I type that, I realise that just bookmarking the page that I want would be easier, even though I regularly use 4 or more different PC’s.Via Phil Bradley, who has some concerns.