Librarians’ Twitter use actually useful; newsfolks, not so much

I’m embarrassed to say my knitting buddy emailed me a great link about librarian use of Twitter. She knows I don’t watch my twitter feed often enough to catch something there!

For the ALA Midwinter Meeting, they enabled Twitter as a tool. And liked it.

‘And wow did Twitter play a big part. Kenley Neufeld sums it up pretty well, and even notes how fun the experience was. If you had asked me, I wouldn’t have predicted that four councilors would tweet from the floor during council sessions, thereby providing an effective, real-time transcript of what was happening. Even beyond that, though, I got to participate in meetings I wasn’t physically at (from within other meetings), as did people who weren’t even in Denver. And good things came from all of it (including a helpful guide for what *not* to do).’

What they did right?

Made it useful. Considered their audience.  Librarians [presumably] love to share information (see refs to content management system, and numerous well written replies to the blog post.) So, they shared information from the seminar, broadcasting widely via Twitter.

Made it inclusive. Conducted training before the meeting.

Gave guidelines (later in the post there are more great links to how-to’s and how-not-to’s.)

On the other hand …

(all following quotes from TV news stars turn 140 characters on Twitter into too much information, Alessandar Stanley, New York Times, published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, 3/1/2009)

“Left alone in a cage with a mountain of cocaine, a lab rat will gorge itself to death. Caught up in a housing bubble, bankers will keep selling mortgage-backed securities — and amassing bonuses — until credit markets seize, companies collapse, and millions of investors lose their jobs and homes. And news anchors and television personalities who have their own shows, websites, blogs and pages on Facebook.com and MySpace.com will send messages via Twitter — an online social networking site where messages of up to 140 characters can be posted from computers or mobile devices — until the last follower falls into a coma.”

Since the article isn’t online any more, here are some highlights:

‘The Internet has revolutionized society by giving anyone an instant and unfiltered outlet for self-expression. But it has also turned journalism into a year-round, ever-updated “Dear Friends and Family” Christmas newsletter. “I watched the Obama speech on treadmill after getting home late from daughter’s softball practice,” Rick Sanchez of CNN informed his Twitter community on Tuesday. “Now I’m going to study it on paper.” ‘

What? Who cares???

And then there is the good

‘ There are those like David Gregory of NBC, an early Twitter enthusiast, who argue that it’s just another marketing tool. “About to get started,” he typed moments before hosting “Meet the Press” last Sunday. “Gov. Jindal and I just talking about reach of twitter. Tell me what you think of the program today.” ‘

The bad

‘ But Gregory also seems to view Twitter as a diary for his inner musings: “It’s 830. Rehearsal done. Guests should arrive anytime now. This is a good time for me to go thru my q’s one last time. Maybe a bagel b4 air.” ‘

And the ugly

‘ Politicians are following the herd, though those who tweet too soon live to back-tweet. During President Obama’s speech Tuesday, the office of Rep. Joe L. Barton, R-Texas, sent out this tweet: “Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren’t going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour.” A few minutes later, the office sent out a disclaimer. “Disregard that last Tweet from a staffer.” ‘