Twitter Take Two

While I try to keep my library blog worksafe, sometimes I'm amused that no one lets me know they read it. For instance, last night I was out with some friends and apparently I was volunteered at a meeting to come in and talk to admin about Twitter. Obviously no one read my post about disliking Twitter as a marketing mechanism. I tried to come up with some ways I would like Twitter in libraries, and I think it's going to seem very complicated.

1. Each library branch or cluster (local groups of libraries) and department would have their own Twitter account. That way messages would be targeted by audience, parents could know about local storytimes, teens could find out about teen events etc.

2. If it was a systemwide account, it would be best to deal with either announcements (ie closures) or trivia (ie strange things found in books). Trivia accounts must respect patron privacy including annoying/harassing/irrational behavior that makes library work so interesting

3. Would the accounts be interactive? If not the library is just using twitter for web cred, which it loses by using an interactive service as a free text messaging service. Someone would have to respond to direct messages AND would have to read the subsribers messages (including what everyone eats for lunch)

4. The library should be monitoring Twitter for messages that may be related to the library. This might be the most important use. If someone has a customer service complaint and tweets about it rather than fill out a form at the library, the library should be watching out for these.

5. Daydreaming about my presentation that I haven't been asked to give. I want two laptops and projectors so on one wall I can keep my Twitter feed running during the presentation to give people an idea of what it looks like and how it interfaces with day to day life.

6. I've got to learn more about hash tags # . I know this is how numerous users group their tags about specific events and there is probably a use for this in the library.

7. Rumors of software for managing multiple posters to a single Twitter account are out there. The library needs to find out more about this (or if this is the case, I need to find out more about this). I blew off the idea recently because the one I looked at cost money.

8. I'm still trying to figure out how to manage multiple Twitter accounts from one phone.

9. Warning patrons and library staff about the importance of unlimited text messaging. Twitter is a fail when your mom (with two Twitter friends) calls to tell you she went $50 over her text limit in one month. Patrons generally are not as nice as your mom when a $50 charge appears on their account.

10. Last but not least, I look forward to the opportunity to discuss this with a group of people who may have different opinions and knowledge and plans for this. While right now I have serious doubts, in a few months things may change to make this a valuable service for the library system. And as I wrote in my last post, I'm a very big advocate for Twitter as a social networking service. I'm just trying to figure out where it fits in as a marketing service.

Filter Failure, and Not To Find the Good Stuff

I was looking at the Modified Librarian page and did a little backtracking to see just what BME World is all about. That's when I made the mistake of seeing if our library's filter was any good. Now, I can't get to my favorite radio stations or Perez Hilton, which is probably good for productivity, and I'm pretty far on the open minded side of sexuality, but if a filter is going to shield my eyes from MS Paint ejaculate on celebrity faces I sure expect it to guard me against anything naughty at "dogslut's homepage: cock torture and self castration". I'm not linking there, you can go to the BME World homepage and see if it's blocked at your library on your own, and I don't reccomend testing it out while you're on the public desk or if "I was looking at librarian tattoos and went too far back on the server" isn't an excuse you can use (which, since it is my excuse, you really can't).

Which brings me to my typical rant about filters. Filters only filter what they know about. Filters don't filter email. Filters often don't filter chat rooms. Here is a ten year old web page that is not filtered.

It reminds me of a time a librarian friend was visiting my house from Portland. She had dial up at home, so her toddler was allowed to smash the keys on her computer as much as he liked. At my house, he happily climbed into the office chair and did the same. Except we had DSL and left a browser window open. He got "PPP" into Google and hit enter, bringing him one step away from the Polyamorous People's Party. Now, I'm sure they're nice folks, the page probably isn't even strange. Even if the kid hit "XXX" he was probably too young to be traumatized by whatever he saw.

Kids are smart. Filters are dumb. Librarians are curious. People put everything up on the web. You have to think to avoid stuff, and to find what you're looking for. I honestly advocate that parents should supervise their children online all the time. Should my parents read this they'll probably say "oh but you were so secretive!"...well yes, because as a teenager I was doing things I shouldn't have. This was before photos and webcams, but also before screen names. Yesterday was just one more incident in my history, and if I'd known I'd grow up to be a tattooed librarian, it could have happened a long time ago.

Much better

A patron comes up to the desk and says, "I have a problem."

I seize up, wait for the torrent.

"Life of Pi; do you have it?"

I admit my hearing isn't great, but it's much better to mistake something good for bad when it comes to working on the desk.