CPL 2.0: Twitter

I've used Twitter for about three years now. I moved back to Calgary after finishing university, and almost all of my university friends joined the site. I found it really nice to join the site and get daily updates from my friends, who I'd moved away from. It is very similar to what Facebook's new news feed, but without the photos and videos and annoying Farmville/Pirate adventure/whatever updates.

Now, I still tweet from my personal account (http://twitter.com/kalo3,) and I also tweet for the library that I work at (http://twitter.com/fishcreeklib.) My personal account is protected so that I need to approve your account in order for you to see my tweets and get them in your list. The library's account is not protected, so anyone can follow me, and it's been interesting to see the kind of account that has started to follow me. Some of them are local people or organizations in the area, a few of them are library twitter pages, and a few of them are randoms who have started following me because they're interested in something I'm tweeting about.

So here is this week's question:

• What kind of information is being posted by the library accounts above? What kind of information should libraries post?

CPL's accounts are posting a real variety of information: information about contests, big events, library programs, volunteer opportunities, blog entries and other information from the CPL homepage, etc. And this is exactly the kind of information that we should be posting about. I also tweet from time to time about changes in the physical Fish Creek library itself - if we're moving some collections, or have new displays, and our big game boards. I try to tweet at least three times a day, to stay current and relevant (or re-tweet from another CPL twitter accounts.) If you aren't active about the account, and only have one tweet or so each week, it's not enough to build up your followers, or have them want to keep following your account.

I've also re-tweeted a few of KonaDawg's tweets. (http://twitter.com/KonaDawg.) Kona is one of the dogs that comes to Fish Creek's Story Pals program to help reluctant youth readers. Lee, who is Kona's owner, runs his twitter account for him, as Kona probably hasn't mastered typing quite yet, even though he's great to read to ;)