Over on Museum 2.0, Nina Simon (not Nina Simone – and wouldn’t it be something if this post was sung by her) has a *great* blog post encouraging museums to get human on their Twitter accounts and provide more than just “spammy and dull” tweets. Pretty much everything she exhorts museums to do applies to libraries, as well. Actually, it’s great advice for all types of organizations, including, um, associations and the like.
She provides seven broad suggestions, but here are some specific ideas she proposes for “museum Twitter ‘radio stations’.” Just think “libraries” instead of “museums” to imagine what a great stream your library could offer.
An Open Letter to Museums on Twitter
- “Funny things said by visitors.
- Guard feed! (Thanks for the idea, Shelley.)
- Institutional superstitions or weird things about the building.
- The imagined experiences of a famous artifact, heavily loved interactive, or other institutional mascot (see this Twitter feed, which I doubt is written by AMNH staff).
- Haiku about museum work.
- A daily or weekly feature on a specific topic.
- Jokes, recipes, quotes, and interesting facts. Do you know why there are naked ladies on the front of ships?
- Weird and surprising behind-the-scenes victories and challenges. What’s it like to prep an exhibition on poop?
- Topical, provocative questions.”
Do you know of any libraries already doing this type of tweeting? There are some good examples listed on the very helpful Twittering Libraries section of the LIS 5313 wiki, but I need to go through the whole list.
I’m also interested in finding associations doing this well (I’m planning to go through Lindy Dreyer’s list of associations on Twitter).
The Library Secrets program at College of DuPage has a Twitter account at http://twitter.com/librarysecrets. We use it to promote online tools and apps that our patrons (students, faculty, community members) might find useful & to promote the Library Secrets program itself.
It’s not as creative (or cutesy-poo) as some of Nina Simon’s suggestions, but I think it’s a little more interesting than the standard library newsfeed tweets, which are often recycled content that can be found in other places.
Comment by Jenn — January 7, 2009 @ 4:17 pm
The blog wants the full-stop to be part of the URL– sorry. Here’s the link to the Library Secrets twitter page:
http://twitter.com/librarysecrets
Comment by Jenn — January 7, 2009 @ 4:18 pm
[…] highlights a blog posting to Jenny Levine’s The Shifted Librarian (http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2009/01/05/an-open-letter-to-libraries-on-twitter.html), where Jenny encourages librarians to twitter well. Jenny cites a blog posting by Nina Simon about […]
Pingback by Does your library twitter? « MLNC Pipes Up — January 8, 2009 @ 4:54 pm
[…] hype for librarians to be overbearing as of late? Many blogs in my feed reader, including ACRLog, The Shifted Librarian, and Tame the Web have recently featured posts and comments about the social media app, which is […]
Pingback by Whither Twitter? « the zeds — January 19, 2009 @ 9:08 am
[…] then, I have found many more libraries using Twitter. Furthermore, recent comments on blog posts by Jenny Levine (The Shifted Librarian) and the ACRL blog show continued expansion and ingenious uses of Twitter. (Definitely check out […]
Pingback by More on Twittering Libraries « Circulation — January 31, 2009 @ 11:35 am
[…] hype for librarians to be overbearing as of late? Many blogs in my feed reader, including ACRLog, The Shifted Librarian, and Tame the Web have recently featured posts and comments about the social media app, which is […]
Pingback by Whither Twitter? « the zeds : library science — August 1, 2010 @ 9:03 pm