A couple of days ago, I created a private list of Cambridge Libraries, as opposed to Librarians, on Twitter, from the #cam23 comments and members.
The first list of seven libraries was expanded by clicking on the followers’ link and scrolling down, a time consuming exercise which added three libraries.
At the drop in session I chatted to Andy about lists and institutional use of Twitter and he pointed out lists such as @followalibrary/United Kingdom
Later I revisited the blog by The Passion and the Fury “Why I created a library Twitter account”
It seemed that it might be interesting to find out as of 1st July 2010 :
How many Cambridge libraries have Twitter links on their websites?
How many people are following?
Is Twitter better used for personal and professional development and networking or as an additional means of marketing the library? If so who is being targeted, other librarians, faculty/department/academic staff or post and undergraduates?How many people are following?
Although there a variety of librarian lists on Twitter, and you can sort on #hashtags I found it hard to identify institutional users from Twitter search screen and went back to the web pages listed in the Cambridge Libraries Directory. There were some Libraries with Facebook but no Twitter links and some College Twitter links but very few libraries have yet embedded Twitter links in their webpages
Institution Followers Following Listed
ebookscambridge 153 199 25
libatcam 197 209 17
The UL 65 862 80
Homerton College 74 111 16
Wolfson College 3 15 0
Economics Marshall 74 160 12
Education faculty 7 37 8
Earth Sciences 46 41 4
Music Pendlebury 2 18 0
Philosophy Casimir Lewis61 57 8
Management Judge 23 137 17
(apologies - have spent longer than I intended trying to get a table into the blog and have given up)
We are tweeting, to each other about interesting developments but students and perhaps faculty may not be engaging with this method of communication

We haven't promoted our Twitter account yet at Education but plan to do so in the new academic year.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see the take up.
ReplyDelete