A Monday Full of Tweets

By: Laura Warren, Libraries Thriving Coordinator

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a blended social learning center with a group of library directors at the Library of Virginia Directors’ Meeting.  There were dozens of participants on-site at the Library of Virginia who contributed to a facilitated discussion about the issues that libraries are facing and there were also participants from all over the United States, including Jill Hurst-Wahl, digital literacy enthusiast who spoke at a recent Libraries Thriving online seminar (check out the recording of “Towards Digital Literacy” in the Libraries Thriving Archives), and David Lee King, the Digital Services Director at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. These off-site participants chimed in via Twitter using the hashtag #lvadir12.

This week’s Required Reading pick is the Twitter feed from the Library of Virginia Directors’ Meeting. To find this feed, navigate to Twitter and log into your account**. Once you’ve logged in, search for #lvadir12 in the search box at the top of the Twitter homepage. Here you’ll find all of the tweets from online and on-site participants at the Virginia Library Directors’ Meeting. Skimming the messages to see what we talked about will undoubtedly uncover some gems but I think the most valuable way to use this Twitter feed is to follow librarians who participated in this conversation so that you can see the library-related tweets that they make in the future. You can click on a person’s name or photo to find a short autobiographical blurb and some of their recent tweets. If they look like a kindred library spirit and you’d like to hear more from them in the future, click the “follow” button which is located below their blurb and above their recent tweets.

While you’re at it, one last thing–why not follow @libsthriving and @credoreference, too?  That way you won’t miss out on exciting events like the upcoming Libraries Thriving online seminar series and featured Credo Reference Topic Pages.

**Don’t have an account yet? Well, there’s no time like the present to create one for your personal use or for your library’s use. A lot of our discussion at the Library of Virginia Directors’ Meeting was about becoming tech savvy ourselves so that we will feel comfortable sharing Facebook, Google+, Twitter and other web communication tools with patrons.