Library Twitterati

We've almost hit the end of Thursday in the 23 Things week of Twitter. Our @Uos23 Twitter account has 34 followers at the time of writing (only two of whom are spam), and we've had some good discussion over the past few days.

It's been rather more hard work than I'd expected or intended - and I have to admit that after putting in a lot of effort in the first three days, today I was feeling a bit flat. That said, I was hoping that by now people would be finding their own feet - and I tried to encourage people to retweet posts from other people that they were following outside of the 23 Things participants.

That was important, I felt - because to get a proper flavour of Twitter you really need to get involved in conversations, and you need to follow people who tweet (at least in part) on topics you're interested in. I totally appreciate that that is very hard for people to do if this week is their first ever experience of Twitter. After all, I well remember my first exploratory steps into Twitter, and at first I didn't go much on it either.

But some time later I came back to it - and eventually I kind of got the hang of it, and now I check it a lot, and tweet a fair bit too. Nothing staggeringly important - yes, I'm one of the many who mostly talk rubbish. Or football (and I'm aware that some will consider those to be one and the same!).

I do follow a few serious accounts - but the problem I have (and I do think that this is true for many people who use Twitter, or who are put off from using it) is that it's so incredibly easy to be overwhelmed by tweets.

I like Ben Goldacre, and a few other sciencey/evidence based mediciney accounts - but my timeline very quickly gets inundated with messages. Some of which are very interesting, some of which are not. And it's very hard to sort out one from the other. And go away from Twitter for a day or two and you have no hope at all of catching up on everything you've missed.

So to sum up: I use Twitter; I like Twitter; It can be really useful to find information that you wouldn't find elsewhere; But I do also accept that it takes time to get used to; And I accept that it's far from perfect.

I hope everyone has found this Twitter thing interesting and at least vaguely useful - even if it's just to the point that you know what Twitter actually is and how it works now.

And maybe, just maybe one of our participants might continue using Twitter beyond 5pm on Friday...

Long Loan Competition

I've just seen this post by Sarah Lund, a fellow 23 Things Soton blogger... and as I pointed out, in our library the book wouldn't actually be overdue (according to our current loan rules, so long as nobody recalled it).

That got me thinking - I have about 30 years until I retire, so if I could find a really obscure book I'd still be a long way off having had it for 55 years. But with the retirement age only likely to go upwards, there's a possibility that perhaps a newer member of staff could actually manage to borrow a book for that length of time.

Someone starting at the age of 16 would need to still have it at the age of 71. It's a bit of a slow burner in competition terms, I'll admit :)

What is the Point of Twitter?

In setting up this week's tasks on Twitter, I've deliberately focused on some lighthearted topics for discussion: favourite films, things you've always wanted to do and the inevitable cat pictures (you do know that cats rule the internet, don't you?).

But I do run the danger of just convincing you that Twitter is only good for trivial, pointless things. Silly pictures, bad jokes, what I'm having for dinner.

It isn't.

Well, it could be if that's all you're interested in - but it doesn't have to be that way (sorry - I couldn't resist!)

If you only go out looking for celebrity news, then don't be surprised if that's all you get. But if you want to use it for a more serious purpose then you'll discover that there's a lot more to Twitter than just cat pictures (nice as they are). Your experience of Twitter will be driven by what you search for, who you follow, and what you tweet about.

So if you'd like to experience a side of Twitter that's a bit more substantial, adjust your use accordingly. Me? I like sciencey things and evidence based medicine, so I follow people like Brian Cox and Ben Goldacre. I also follow the accounts of several Southampton police stations.

I also follow the account of my OU tutor... who doesn't tweet too much about our course, but instead is quite politically vocal - which in itself is fascinating to read.

You'll find lots of library and HE people on Twitter, and plenty of discussion on topics that are of interest to people working in academic libraries.

If we get enough 23 Things Soton people tweeting this week, I might try and kick off a more serious topic for discussion - but that's not to say it has to come from me: if you want to start a discussion topic of your own, just go ahead :)

Twitter Visibility

The Twitter section of 23 Things has kicked off, and hasn't taken long for a very important question to be asked...

@uos23 Can anyone see this on the list?
— Pam Wake (@choccypam) February 11, 2013

 I sent Pam a reply - but I want to expand on that here, as I think it needs more detail than you can fit into (several!) 140 character messages.

Essentially tweets are very public messages. It might feel like you're having a private discussion with friends, but a more accurate picture would be of you writing a message to your friend on a post-it note, and sticking it on a park wall. Your friend can read it, but so can anyone else who happens to wander past the wall today, or at any time in the future.

It's this very public accessibility of tweets that makes the service so powerful... but which can also land people in hot water about what they write.

The Basics

When you write a tweet, it automatically appears on the timeline of anyone who follows you - unless you start it with someone else's username.

So everyone who follows you will automatically see that message.

But your message can also be found by anyone who runs a search on any word or hash tag that you've included in your message. So potentially it's viewable by anyone on Twitter.

Scary? Perhaps. But remember that Twitter is a deliberately public medium. If you want to have private conversations, Twitter is not the place. The whole point of Twitter is to have your voice heard - which is why people put hash tags on - it's done to make their tweet more likely to be found and read by complete strangers.

Browsing Messages

People can also see what you've tweeted if they find your profile. They can look at your Twitter home page and click on the list of your tweets.

This is a really useful feature if you've just got a new follower... see what they've tweeted and find out if they're actually a spam account, just a random person, or somebody you know in real life.

Tweeting Others Directly

If you send a message directly to someone else, you normally start that tweet with their username, e.g.:

@ricpaul Great #saintsfc result on Saturday!

Here, only people who follow both you and @ricpaul will have that message automatically added to their Twitter timeline. (But remember it's still perfectly findable through the other means mentioned above.)

But what if you want everyone to see your message to someone else?

In that case, start your message with a full stop:

.@ricpaul Great #saintsfc result on Saturday!

Because the message doesn't now start with a username, everyone who follows you will now see your tweet in their timeline, whether or not they follow @ricpaul

(In fact it could be any character, but the full stop is used by convention because it's unobtrusive.)

Direct Messages

If you do want to send a private message to someone, then you can "direct message" them. But you can only do this if you follow that person, and they follow you as well.

Protecting Your Account

If you are feeling nervous about going public on Twitter, then you can protect your tweets. This means that your messages will only be viewable by your followers.

But it also means that you will need to approve every request to follow you, and nobody can retweet any of your messages.

I can see why people might want to do that... but it kind of defeats the whole point of being on Twitter in the first place, in my opinion.

Don't Be Scared!

I hope this has clarified a few things - my main message about experimenting with Twitter is not to be scared. Get out there and tweet! The fun of Twitter only really appears when you've built up a few followers and had a few discussions - so try following a few people who talk about subjects you're interested in.

Search on a few hash tags that relate to subjects you're interested in, and reply to a few people and retweet a few messages that you like.

It will probably take more than a week to really get into Twitter properly if you've not been using it before now - but give it a go... you might just find that you like it :)

Twitter Task

Twitter is about communication. Very short communication, I grant you - but communication nonetheless. So in preparing the Twitter task I've tried very hard to encourage discussion and give you all inspiration for things to tweet about.

The task worksheet has one topic in it, which will start a two-part activity running throughout the week. On Wednesday I've got a second topic that I'll unleash on everyone.

But I also have a couple of mini-topics that I'll mention on Monday - both on the Sot 23 Things blog, and on the UoS23 Twitter account.

I won't say much more at the moment... you'll just have to wait until Monday :)

Browser Choices

Since I wrote the instructions for the Browser part of "23 Things", I guess I ought to write about my thoughts on this...

Internet Explorer

Quite simply, I can't stand it. I use it under protest at work, only when I really have to. There are a few things that force me to use it (primarily TeamSite, which we use to update the website), and my computer doesn't seem to be happy unless my default browser for opening links is IE.

So I'm not able to escape it completely - but I try my best to avoid it whenever possible. And I wouldn't dream of using it at home.

Firefox & Chrome

Instead of using IE, I prefer either Firefox or Chrome... and I don't have a massive preference for one over the other. I guess I use Chrome a bit more than Firefox - it does seem to live up to its blurb of being a very fast browser - but I do still use Firefox as well, both at home and at work.

Work vs. Home

I have to say that I find the older browser versions we use at work really frustrating. I find more and more websites complaining that the browser I'm using it too old for them to guarantee that their site will work effectively - indeed, every time I start Firefox it reminds me that it needs updating.

It seems daft that I work for a big organisation that's really IT-focused... and yet I can go home and get a far better internet experience on my personal computer than I can on my work PC.

Yes, I understand that our IT people have concerns about stability, support, security and all that - so I'm under no illusion that any of this is simple... but speaking purely as an end user, I find that having to work with old and outdated tools is frustrating.

Rant over :)

Black Sheep

One wrong move, and these boys will have your throat out!

New Zealand. Sheep. Genetic experiments. What could possibly go wrong?

Black Sheep is a low-budget, but fun entry into the catalogue of zombie movies - and one that's carved it's own little niche by basing itself on sheep, the most numerous inhabitants of New Zealand.

I desperately, desperately want to say it was brilliant... but it wasn't. It wasn't awful, bad or even "meh" - I'd give it a "quite good" in a positive tone of voice.

I didn't have any problem with the effects (I actually rather enjoyed the use of obvious puppetry), nor with the storyline and dialogue. This was clearly a low budget effort from the off, and I'm very happy to accept that as a viewer.

Where I think it failed is that it couldn't make up its mind whether it should be seriously scary, or deliberately funny (and it's a mistake I think a lot of films in this genre make).

If you want to make a scary movie, then I think these days you have to do it really well. Cheap effects, poor  scripts, poor acting... all these things seriously detract from the quality of the film. Of course you can have humour in it - but if you want to make a scary movie, then that has to be at the core of the film you want to make.

If you're going to make a funny movie, then you have lots more leeway to use dodgy effects, an obvious storyline and predictable scary moments. But you have to be funny regularly throughout the film.

But get caught in the middle and you end up with a bit of a rubbish scary movie, and a bit of a rubbish comedy movie... and that's kind of where Black Sheep ends up.

Personally, I think they should have accepted that they were working with a low budget and therefore making a really good quality, scary movie was going to be difficult (unless they had an exceptionally talented crew, and committed 100% to the scariness throughout). I think they should have taken a good look at Shaun of the Dead and upped the humour content.

Not that I'm suggesting that "funny" is easy. Not a bit of it - it's very hard to do well (and Shaun is a harsh comparison, because that team has been together for quite some years, doing the excellent Spaced). But if you have obviously rubber sheep attacking people, I don't know that you've got much of a choice.

It's definitely one of those films that I enjoyed, but which leaves me frustrated that I'm not a movie maker myself - I'd love to redo Black Sheep and make it the brilliant film that it could be.