Librarians and Twitter

(Note: This post is by new SJRLC blogger Justin Hoenke, Cape May County Teen Librarian.  If you are an SJRLC member and are interested in blogging for "Connections" please email Peter Bromberg at bromberg@sjrlc.org.  If you want to learn more about Twitter, join us for our first SJRLC Webinar, Tweet What?  on August 25.  Details at: http://tinyurl.com/tweetwhat

Over the past few months, I've become an avid Tweeter.  At first I felt
sort of overwhelmed by the whole thing.  I thought to myself "who
really cares about what I'm doing/thinking/reading/etc?".  I'd jump on
Twitter once every few weeks and dip my toes in the water.  It wasn't
until I started following a lot of New Jersey librarians that I got to
see the big picture. 

I quickly found out that there are A LOT of us librarians on
Twitter and that we're all there to support each other and share
ideas.  I was instantly hooked.  It was like I was becoming a member of
some very rad gang.  The New Jersey Twittering Librarians Club.  Or
something like that…

What I love most about the New Jersey librarians who use Twitter is
the community that has been created.  Being the only teen librarian for
my library, I often felt rather alone with my ideas and plans.   Once I
got involved with Twitter and New Jersey librarians, that sense of
being alone went away.  Here was a group of like minded individuals who
were sharing and collaborating and advancing the library in today's
society.

Here are a few pointers for those just starting using Twitter:

1. Share ideas, thoughts, news, articles.  I get most of my library news through Twitter these days. 

2. #followalibrarian is what the Twitter world calls a hash tag.  Librarians recently have started using this hash tag to recommend other librarians that you should follow on Twitter. 

3. To start off, here are just a few New Jersey librarians that I began following when I first signed up.  They were the ones who really helped me see the value that Twitter can have for librarans.

@wawoodworth, @pbromberg, @sophiebiblio, @redheadfangirl, @tadawes, @janieh, @akearns, @JustinLibrarian, @njla, @nancydowd, @LizB

To encourage this tweeting librarians community even more, I thought I'd organize the first ever New Jersey Librarians Tweetup.  This will give us New Jersey librarians a chance to finally meet up, network, and share even more ideas.

WHEN: Saturday October 3, 2009
TIME: 6:00pm
WHERE: Atlantic City, NJ at the Tropicana

(I'm not 100% sure on restaurants. Where do you think would be best? Click here for the list of restaurants in the Tropicana and leave a comment to let me know! Get back to me by September 18 so I can make reservations!)

WHO IS INVITED? Any librarians that want to make the trek.

If you wouldn't mind, please RSVP by either leaving a comment to this blog post, emailing me at justinthelibrarian (at) gmail dot com or send me a message on Twitter @justinlibrarian.

Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/keiya/ / CC BY 2.0