Twittering a Conference?
Twitter is a micro-blogging application. Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write and publish brief text updates (in Twitter, 140 characters or less). These updates can be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group. People can update and post these messages by text messaging, instant messaging, email, or a variety of other methods. I have been playing off and on with Twitter and other micro-bloggers such as Pownce to see what uses they might have (if any) in the medical library world.
I was intrigued when I read the Travelin' Librarian's post, How to create a Twitter conference feed. He has micro-blogged three conferences and created a Twitter RSS feed so people who are not at the conference could read posts from attendees. He shares how to twitter a conference based off of his previous experiences. While he admits his system may not perfect he thinks that the major bugs have been worked out.
It is an interesting concept. However, it seems a majority of us are just getting a handle on managing regular blog reading and RSS feeds, plus I am not sure how interested most people would be in a play by play sort of information that micro-blogging gives. Still it is an interesting perspective and there are some very active twittering medical librarians. There is already an MLA2008 account on Twitter for people attending the conference. Some industrious librarians have started a pubmedbootcamp which is an experiment teaching advanced PubMed searching skills via a twitter group.
Other than it being fun and another quick way of connecting with peers, I am not yet convinced micro-blogging is ready for prime time in the medical library world. It will be interesting to see how MLA2008 and pubmedbootcamp turn out. If they are successful, it offers new opportunities for some librarians to share information.
posted by The Krafty Librarian @ 1:55 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Twittering sounds suspiciously similar to instant messaging. What is the difference?
And don't forget considering the Hashtags: during and after the CIL2008 conference no one talked about it, but it can be used (in a different way, and when people know about it) also!
http://hashtags.org/
I would recommend using the hashtags approach (nanoformats) rather than creating separate conference accounts. Everyone just marks their post with e.g. #or08 and then you can get a feed from
http://twemes.com/or08
or (IF the user first follows hashtags)
http://hashtags.org/tag/or08
I agree completely with Richard. use of hashtags is the standard way of handling group discussion for a major conference event. Creating a separate account is rather risky.
That said, I will say that I am delighted that MLA is *aware* of Twitter! I commonly do twitter presentations I attend, such as this one earlier this week by our med school dean on the topic of globalizing our educational process and supporting tech/info structures.
http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/etechlib/archives/2008/05/enriching_schol.html
What is really neat about Twittering a presentation as a liveblogging application is the dialog that happens with persons around the world about the presentation. Often questions are raised by those following my twitterstream which I take back to the presenter in real time. Not to mention that it brings the topic and presenter and event to the attention of a much wider audience.
Referencegirl, Twitter is much more then an instant messaging service. You are limited to a lot with any IM service. Twitter is more opened to just about anything using at this time 140 characters per message. Go to this site to learn more about twitter: http://tinyurl.com/33uxvl.
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