I’ll admit that I was eager (and quick) to jump on the big Library 2.0 bandwagon. Maybe it’s because I really like the idea of people interacting with each other and technology in new and unusual ways. I don’t really know, but almost weekly I find (or rediscover) a tool that makes my job and/or my life easier/more connected/fun/interesting/etc.

Twitter is one of those things that I really rediscovered. I signed up for my account almost sometime in the middle of summer ‘07 and really didn’t use if for anything. Then some great Firefox things came along and I installed a couple, and all of a sudden I was Twittering right along.

At first it just seemed like a nice social thing. I started following some library-types and some other people/entities. And people were sharing things that were interesting. Sometimes we had little chats and shared jokes or pain about our jobs.

Then someone asked for help with a question. And Twitter became a network of professionals with answers to share.

I’ve helped a couple of people by finding stuff in books sitting on my library’s shelves or information in our databases. I’ve asked a couple of questions that were quickly answered with information that I passed along to the library user.

This is so great! It’s much better than a listserv in some ways because it’s right there on my desk top so I don’t have email (although I still think listservs are really helpful). As more people start to use it, the possibilities and information available just continues to expand.

This isn’t meant to be an ad for Twitter. I really just wanted to share how I’m using a really neat tool available free to anyone.

What types of things are you using? How are you using them? Please share!