Tweet tweet!

This week I joined Twitter (http://twitter.com/efpoxon) and signed up to follow a number of libraries and institutes- our homegrown RAIOxford (like my colleague Johanna had trouble searching for the VHL with the initial search tool), the BL, Lib of Congress, NY Public Library, the Bod and the Penguin Book Group. I replied to one of the other ox23 participants tweets and tweeted myself for the very first time!

Along with a number of fellow ox23-ers, I am not so convinced this week as to how Twitter can be used so effectively in the academic context. Yes, it offers the opportunity to promote events/new acquisitions etc. or for colleagues to engage in dialogues visible to others, but the small number of characters can lead to a number of abbreviations and 'Twitterspeak', elements which I found more impenetrable than, for example, the Facebook status update which seems to fulfill a largely similar task. So, all in all, making the most of the Tweeting experience can be trickier for the less technologically experienced librarian, even though the act of composing a tweet in itself is quick and continues to promote the idea of immediacy.