ATG Luminaries
ATG Luminaries
Rachel Flemming 0 1
0 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact
1 ALA President , Head Librarian, J. Clarence Kelly Library , Penn State Greater Allegheny
Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation
-
ATG Luminaries — Comment On ... Twitter
Column Editor: Rachel Fleming (Head of Serials, Western Carolina University) <>
It is a large world out there with
many forums for conversation.
Even in small communities, a lot
happens on a daily basis, some
things are critical to know; some
are entertaining; some trivial; and
some could advance your career.
Increasingly, conversations take
place on services like Twitter.
NISO is based on openness
and sharing, so sharing on Twitter
makes sense for us. My own use
of Twitter is driven by that precept.
I tweet a lot during open
meetings and conferences. This public
note taking serves our community
by sharing my participation, what
is happening, and the
conversations taking place around those
events.
Engaging virtually in meetings
we can’t attend in person, or
following conversations via hashtags,
is another use of Twitter. NISO
regularly monitors an extensive list
of hashtags for relevant activities
that we need to be abreast of.
We use Twitter to find experts
to engage in community work
taking place at NISO. We also
use Twitter to engage the
community and build awareness of our
activities, but advertising is very
different from engaging
conversations. If all one does on Twitter is
broadcast ads, it is unlikely people
will want to follow you.
One does not need to read
everything on Twitter. I get what
I get out of it, when I get it and
know I am missing a lot. Things
will pass by and I don’t need to be
the first person to hear anything.
I encourage everyone to engage
in the conversations taking place.
Everyone has something to say and
can meaningfully contribute.
Rachel Fleming
Head of Serials, Western Carolina University She tweets @RachelMFleming.
I first joined Twitter to talk
about sports, and I still talk
about baseball all the time, but
I’ve been surprised at the ways
in which Twitter has come to
support my professional life.
Twitter is a never-ending
conference where you can be
inspired and challenged daily. I
follow conferences I am unable
to attend, and find blog posts
and journal articles to read. I
enjoy watching conversations
about important topics develop
between different people I
follow almost as much as I enjoy
engaging in these discussions.
As someone working and living
in a rural area, the ability to
interact with people in similar
positions is a vital professional
network. Their perspectives and
activities keep me excited about
my job and my profession.
I prefer Twitter over blogs,
Facebook, and most other
media because of the flexibility
and flow. While I use Twitter
a certain way, it is not the only
way, and the user has control of
how they tweet and interact with
other users. For me, Twitter’s
effectiveness is strengthened by
the fullness of personalities users
bring to their postings. I get to
know whole people, not just their
professional identities. Twitter is
a place where I can engage with
the lives of other users, from
watching the west coast morning
just before lunch time to chatting
on evenings and planning for
weekends. Finding librarians
with similar interests to mine
has kept me engaged in the
profession and invigorated my
professional development.
Jenica P. Rogers
Director of Libraries, The State
University of New York, Potsdam
When my professional friends
started using Twitter, I was totally
disinterested. It took a conference
in which everyone else knew
where the after dinner drinks
were, via Twitter, to change my
mind. In the six years since, I’ve
written 12,000 tweets, followed
hundreds of people, and been
followed by nearly 2,000 more.
The greatest personal advantage
for me is what I think of as social
proprioception — I know what’s
up with my network of friends and
colleagues in the mundane and the
sublime. Twitter is the real-time
extension of my professional
network, giving space to fascinating
conversations about my passions.
They’re short conversations, but
when the topic warrants moving
to a longer form, I do.
My blog is my longer form, but
the conversations about my
writing don’t just happen there. Even
when something is heavily
commented upon, like my post about
the American Chemical Society
(http://www.attemptingelegance.
com/?p=1765), there’s a whole
other unarchived conversation
happening. It often plays out like
this: I autoTweet an
announcement of a new post, and that gets
retweeted, and then the Twitter
conversation starts… and stays
right there. It’s the fleeting
emotion- and reaction-driven thoughts
that live on Twitter, but the “I
think X for reason Y”
commentary gets saved for the blog. And
I think that (...truncated)