I’m following 51 people on Twitter. Today one of them “tweeted” that it was Shawerma Wednesday at Shaherazad, our local mediterrenean restaurant. I love Shawerma Wednesday, but I’d forgotten all about it.

When I signed up for Twitter it was an experiment. I looked for everyone at MSU and in Starkville–there weren’t many–and “followed” all of them. And then they “followed” me. I started getting updates about when exams were happening (and what people were doing to de-stress!). Then MPBOnline and the Clarion Ledger started following me. Mississippi Public Broadcasting is doing some pretty cool things, it turns out.

Then I went to ALA in Anaheim this year and found some friends to follow there. I roomed with warmaiden who was hooked in with lots of cool library-type twitterers. So now I’m following folks that are doing really interesting emerging technology library-type things. And they twitter about them. It turns out you can get a lot of information–or at least a tiny url–into the 140 character micro-blogging limit.

Now I get updates on emerging technologies, news from public radio in Mississippi, along with a peek inside the undergraduate’s mind. And I got my shawerma today for lunch for just $3.50 thanks to willbryantplz.

So now I have to figure out if it can work for our library. What kind of information would people want who are following a library’s tweets? Who would be following them? Or would it just be an RSS feed we could put on our site somewhere with updates? The Clarion Ledger and UIUC Undergrad Library both do that. But what would our patrons want to know? Here’s a list of potentially good information:

1. When anything is closing early or closed for a holiday, etc.
2. When the network is down.
3. When we have an event in the library (?).
4. When we have an interesting workshop in the library (?).
5. When we post pictures on Flickr (?).
6. When printers are down or other equipment.
7. News at the library.
8. When podcasts are released.
9. Major new resources/databases at the library.
10. New blog entries?
11. Hmmm…?

Next…who would keep up with it?

Amanda

The Tech Fair last week was lots of work, but very rewarding! They were expecting 150-200 people, and 380 showed up over the two day fair. They had lots of tech demos (and quite a Wii contest going at one point, I understand) and booths with adaptive technologies, self-checkout machines, and as many gadgets as you can imagine. I talked to TONS of folks, and my part was a mixture of formal presentations and informal discussions, depending on who attended each session (I was scheduled for five sessions each day). Everyone was very engaged and eager to know more about Web 2.0 applications for Libraries–and particularly about what we’ve been doing here at MSU. Most of the attendees were from public libraries or community colleges across the state, from Jackson County on the Gulf Coast to First Regional up in Hernando (near Memphis).

I learned a lot from several libraries who are doing very interesting things. For example, the Lamar County Libraries (particularly Lumberton and Sumrall) are heavily invested in Flickr–and they were very excited about hearing more. The teenagers in their summer reading programs have been particularly thrilled to see pictures of themselves on the web. They’ve also put up Flickr badges on their library web pages. AND they’ve got a MySpace account for the county library system.

I posted pictures of the sessions on Facebook during the Fair, and the one above is of the half of my Flickr workshop comfortable with having their pic online! I couldn’t have done any of it without Pattye Archer and our in-house Instructional Media Center who helped me put the booth and (seven!) handouts together in record time. I don’t know how I would have done this without them. I also put together a handout on libraryh3lp with help (!) from Pam Sessoms and Ellen Hampton. Pam has posted it on the libraryh3lp wiki and blogged about it on the libraryh3lp blog!

You can read more about the MLC Tech Fair on their blog. It turned out that the Fair was open to the public, and 10+ people from Mississippi Public Broadcasting Online attended. They were very interested in what we’ve been doing with emerging technologies, and they’ve got quite a 2.0 program growing at MPBOnline! They are using Facebook and YouTube to promote MPB, as well as Twitter (a microblog) where they “found” me originally.

A very successful event!