Thursday, May 5, 2011

Twitter Away, Industrious Workers

The Krafty Librarian makes an interesting point about how Twitter can sometimes actually enhance ones work, comparing it to a professional email listserv like the epic MEDLIB-L.

Hm. I do get MEDLIB-L, reading the messages with varying levels of attention depending on what else I have going on, and I think of it as a useful way to keep up with things of importance in the field.

I hadn't really thought of Twitter in the same way, but I can see the argument.

An explanation of why it can be helpful to post a professional question to Twitter:

More than just medical librarians are on Twitter. If my librarian friends don’t know the answer they can quickly RT and it goes out to another layer of people. Think of it as an information network onion. Your friends are one layer, their friends are another, and their friends friends are another.

I like the image of an information onion. It makes me smile. And then weep, because onions do that.

The comparison with a listserv would be more exact if I strictly followed other librarians, but I do follow a number of them, so it's totally business related!

So maybe I should remember to sign into Twitter more often, and for more than getting free actions on Echo Bazaar.

Although that is kind of the most important thing. My investigations into the murder at the University must not be delayed.

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