Twitter - NYPL and Stephen Fry

I had a bit of a look around Twitter and discovered a couple of accounts that peaked my interest, that from the New York Public Library (NYPL) and Stephen Fry's Twitter account. I had a spot of trouble locating relevant Library accounts - I found a few but some hadn't been updated for a while. In the end I settled on the NYPL due to its sheer number of interesting tweets. I chose Stephen Fry purely because I'd heard so much regarding his prolific tweeting - coupled with the fact that I think most of what he does is bloody brilliant.

During the Academy Awards in March, the NYPL tweeted a number of quotes attributed to scenes from certain films set in the Library. I thought this was a nice way of linking the Library to the world of cinema and the Awards in general (even if the films mentioned were not themselves nominated for Academy Awards). As a fan of Ghostbusters (and the scene in question) it gave me great pleasure to see it get a mention.

I thoroughly enjoyed Stephen Fry's tweets on his attendance at the recent-ish unveiling of the Apple iPad. While I might not share his extreme enthusiasm for the product in question, I found it hard not to get caught up in the excitement he displays in these tweets (something akin to a small child experiencing their first 'proper' Christmas).

Getting back to Twitter and libraries - I'm not well versed in Twitter but can see its benefits (if used properly). Par example, promoting upcoming library events, alerting users to collections, new purchases and so forth, sharing ideas with other libraries - and allowing users to follow all of this.

regarding wikis

While familiar with wikipedia as something of a research tool (bearing in mind that not everything is 100% accurate) I'd never edited a wiki prior to this week's exercise... At this stage I'm still waiting for the invite key so that I can contribute to the nsw learning 2 wiki but I did have a look at a number of the wikis mentioned in the week 5 notes.
Wookieepedia is a fascinating wiki if only for the seemingly endless amount of information regarding the most trivial aspects of the star wars universe - that said, star wars seems perfect content for a wiki given the information available through films, books etc....most people outside of devoted star wars fans would probably feel a bit intimidated contributing to wookieepedia, but then I'm guessing that's who it's aimed at.
I thought that the BookLovers wiki was a great idea for public libraries - it gives members of book clubs a wider scope for discussing their books outside of face-to-face meetings and would be especially useful if individuals weren't able to make face-to-face meetings and still wanted to enter into and contribute to the discussion.
Obviously with some wikis, as can be seen by the Mint Museum wiki, who edits the information is decided by the people responsible for the establishment of the wiki. As we've seen with wikipedia, information can and has been added incorrectly (often blatantly) - so perhaps this isn't such a bad idea (although it does kind of run contrary to the whole idea of a wiki as being freely available to edit)....

beneath the cold dark waves

It's all a bit new but with a little effort and exploration this should be a fun experience...
My initial refelections on the LL 2.0 program are pretty positive, it looks interesting and relevant to my study and work. And not too daunting...
Blogging could certainly have a place in public libraries, perhaps most effectively if it's aimed at particular users, young adult readers for example...