I think it all started because I wanted to annoy my Library School professor.  She’d assigned us to write an academic paper about a digital information tool like the Google Art Project.  I picked Twitter. Today, Twitter and Facebook are still a huge part of my library career.

For the past two years, I’ve been building a social media presence at Lawrence Public Library that Matt Anderson liked enough to put on both his 100 Libraries to Follow on Twitter and 100 Libraries to Follow on Facebook lists.  Now I’m applying the same treatment at my new library, and I’m pretty excited about how it’s going so far.

All this has gotten me thinking about some of my favorite uses ever of Twitter in libraries.  Right up there with the ones I really like include:

• live-tweeting our bar hopping on World Book Night
• curating a Twitter list of local blogs, and
• becoming Twitter buddies with local authors and journalists

But I think my very favorite is from this fall, when I had the opportunity to moderate a Twitter book chat for my library’s Read Across Lawrence pick, Winter’s Bone.

We set aside some time at 7:00 p.m. on a Wednesday evening in late September and publicized the date along with our Read Across Lawrence hashtag, #ral12.  Then we held our breath.  Sure enough, the tweeters came out — about a dozen of them.  Here are a few tweets, and you can also see the full book chat on Storify »

Was it chaotic? Yes.  Did I know what I was doing? No. Was I freaking out the entire time it was happening? Yes!  But when I sifted through the results on Storify afterward, I was amazed at the breadth of the discussion and connection we had achieved.  And if I can do it, anyone can do it.  You heard me — you can do a Twitter book chat for your library.  Yes, really. You.