I first wrote about Twitter in March, and while I'm still not using it much, even to keep up with my friends/ters, I keep chewing it over in my mind. It very definitely "feels" different, and I've been trying to figure out why I keep thinking there is something new there for libraries.

Besides the way this tool mashes up instant messaging, RSS, and texting (which is important in-and-of-itself), the piece I keep coming back to is the texting. Clearly I'm more interested in the SMS capabilities of Twitter than most other folks, but I don't think I'm unique in that personally I'm using text messaging from my cell phone a lot more than I used to. In December alone, I had 1,200 texts, and more and more I think of it as a preferred medium for communication because I can immediately relay my thoughts or question, and I usually get an answer back pretty quickly. It doesn't have quite the same presence indicator as instant messaging, but it's a channel I always have open to me because I always have my cell phone with me (especially now that I no longer have a landline).

One of the things I realized a couple of months ago when I got my new library card is that I wish my library would communicate with me more this way. I'm so overwhelmed with email that it's a really bad way to try to talk to me. Half the time I'm not at my desk at work, so calling me isn't always effective (although you will get a call back if you leave me voicemail). Instant messaging has been the best way to get my attention, because I'm only on when I'm truly around (as opposed to leaving it on indefinitely).

I'm more careful with my cell phone number, as I want that to always be a viable way for family and friends to reach me, but I willingly gave it to my library. They have yet to use it, though. Obviously I would prefer to get my hold and overdue notices via texting, a service that SWAN is sadly lacking. I realize I'm still in the minority of users, but I think that is changing and honestly, adding texting just can't be that difficult.

So naturally I've been wondering if there is a way for my library to use Twitter to bridge this gap to get them into my flow. David Lee King has been thinking along these same lines, as I found out when we IMed last week. He wants to hook up Twitter to his catalog to send those hold and overdue notices, so I'm looking forward to more pioneering work from him on that front (no pressure there, David!).

But any library that wants to experiment with texting doesn't have to wait for a programmer or wait until there is money in the budget. That's one of the biggest benefits of a lot of these 2.0 tools - anyone can try them for free, including libraries. I'll grant that there is the cost of staff time, but we're not talking about an upfront expenditure for software or hardware the way we traditionally do when we implement new library services.

So here's my theory and the reason for this post. I've already thought out loud about one possible way for a library (or consortium of libraries) to use Twitter, but I think an enterprising library that wants to test out a texting service, especially with teens, could create a free Twitter account and publicize it as an alert notification system. In fact, I think a library could create multiple Twitter accounts and offer a variety of alert services this way. You could text new events to various groups (teens, parents, gamers, homeschoolers, etc.), as well bestseller notifications (Hennepin County Library). It would take some manual work to send out the alerts each time a new title is announced or arrives, but it might be worth it, depending on your community and users. After all, I expect that if a library had offered this type of service for the announcement of the new Harry Potter title, at least a few folks would have taken them up on the offer.

And maybe that's what you do - experiment with this for "really big" announcements. Maybe something related to the summer reading program, I don't know - what's big at your library, especially with the demographic that would be interested in texts? I think this could be even more interesting at an academic library or a high school library (helllllooooo distance learners and class project participants).

One issue to think about would be to make sure users know there could be charges from their cell phone company for texting (although I'm guessing that the folks who sign up for this service already have unlimited texting). Overall, though, it could be a great way to play in the mobile flow of your users at a low cost and low barrier to entry. Plus, don't forget that you get an RSS feed users could subscribe to, as well as the ability to display those alerts in a Twitter box on your home page.

I know everyone's already overworked and understaffed, but I do think Twitter represents a new level of communication and interaction among online and mobile users, in the same way that social networking sites are having an impact on information flow and user expectations. While I'm not advocating for every library to try this, it's important that if you can't play with this kind of technology right now, you at least look at it (remember - free accounts!) in order to understand how these things are incrementally changing again.