Twittery

Excuse me if I get my terms wrong here - I'm learning a new language!

I tweeted every day in August. Sorry, I lie. Every day bar one. I had a Twitter-free day because I felt addiction coming on.

What did I learn from Twitter? Much. I share the following shortened list:

1. What to do with all this information? Once I started following the other people taking the Twitter challenge from ALIA, they fed me so much - links to blogs, interesting websites, experts in the field, slideshares, videos, more people to follow, technologies to learn about - it felt like information overload. I had to get serious about managing it. Exactly what information do I want? Who's going to give the best? (librarians, lecturers and other professionals?) What do I do with it? (sort and save in bookmarks?)
2. How to shorten a URL and why would I want to? In order to share a website link in a tweet, it's best to shorten it so it doesn't take too many characters away from the allowable 140 per tweet. Otherwise I would not be able to say much else. I found bit.ly useful.
   
3. Be a fly on the wall at a conference. I read about a 'New Literacies' conference being held. I searched on Twitter for one of the speakers, and found the hashtag #UTASNewLits to follow. People at the conference tweeted as it went, so I knew some of the content. It will be interesting to do the same with the Perth ALIA conferences.
   
4. QR codes and other mysteries. I know there are sources other than Twitter to find out the latest technologies, but following libraries on Twitter is one way of finding out how they use them. I still have lots of things to get my head around - like 'meme', 'Tweetdeck', 'Jing', 'Storify' and how to share mobile photos. One day...
   
5. Twitter as search tool? Yes. I'm finding sources and resources for the food history event, for example.
   
6. Serendipity happens on Twitter too! I found several very helpful things, both for study and personal use, at just the right time; e.g. the UN library website, an article on information overload (thanks @katiedatwork), an encouraging quote (thanks @BearGrylls).

Twitter is useful - libraries should embrace it. (See Phil Bradley's resource guide.) I'd encourage non-users to have a go. Just being aware of Twitter is not enough to understand its potential.

Twitter has a culture of its own.