Timeless Tweets: Of Libraries and Twitter

Friends with Libraries

Reading through this week’s assigned articles about the role of social media in libraries has caused me to ponder some ethical questions.  Bodnar and Doshi (2011) write about Georgia Tech’s library, which has a Twitter account and actively seeks out Tech students on Twitter so the library can follow their accounts and be on the lookout for potential reference questions.  While it is great that Georgia Tech is embracing social media and using available resources to connect with their patrons, is it ethical for a library (or any organization) to follow an individual’s social media account, even if it is set to the public option?  Bodnar and Doshi raise this same question, stating that while following student accounts allows the library to “actively engage” students and “seek out  opportunities for reference and other library-related interactions,” is it ethical to follow student timelines that “contain profane, explicit, or private information?”  Should it only be up to individuals to choose to follow or not to follow the social media account of a library or any other public organization?

To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

Now for the next question.  Reading Verishagen and Hank’s article about how libraries use Twitter, the part that stood out to me most was the mention that the Library of Congress has been archiving public tweets since 2010 and has access to all of public tweets posted since Twitter’s beginning in 2006.

While I know that what is posted on the Internet is there to stay, should something like this be explicitly archived and organized, as in the case of the Library of Congress Twitter archive?  Should the public have a say in whether or not their tweets are archived – or is the fact that they are posting it on the Internet tacit permission to save it for possible future research?  The Internet keeps everything forever, but having tweets archived and available for research purposes is different from having tweets lost and floating somewhere in the tangles of the Web.

For those who do not want their tweets archived, however, there is another option!  It is called #NoLoC and is a registered Twitter app that will automatically delete a tweet after 23 weeks, before the tweet is sent to the Library of Congress in the 24^th week (Mansilla, 2010).  The application is available at http://noloc.org/ and by including #noloc, #noarchive, #noindex, or even #no in a tweet, you can prevent your tweets from being archived by the Library of Congress.

References

Bodnar, J. & Doshi, A. (2011). Asking the right questions: A critique of Facebook, social media, and 

libraries. Public Services Quarterly.

Mansilla, N. (2010, May 16). #NoLoc.org – Delete that tweet, lest it be immortal! Retrieved May 18, 2015, from http://mansilla.com/2010/05/noloc-org-delete-that-tweet-lest-it-be-immortal/

Verishagen, N. & Hank, C. (2014). Are there birds in the library? The extent of Twitter adoption and use by Canadian academic libraries. First Monday, 19(11), 115-129. doi: 10.5210/fm.v19i11.4945 http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4945/4161