I'm already familiar with social networking websites, since I have a facebook account, and have spent time checking out our own WCPL facebook and myspace pages.
I was not as familiar with twitter and microblogging, so I was interested to see how other libraries use twitter.
I do use (and read) peoples' status updates on facebook, so I do understand the concept of microblogging. From a personal/social point of view, I think they are a time-waster. I don't think there are that many people who are interested in the minutiae of my life. Likewise, I just don't have time to keep up with the moment-to-moment activities of my friends and acquaintances. It's hard enough to keep up with emails, and now I've added some blogs to the mix -- enough!
But I think twitter (and other microblogs, although it remains to be seen who will win the crown of most popular microblog) would be an excellent tool for keeping library patrons up to date on happenings at the library. As anyone who has planned a library program knows, patrons are forgetful and have a memory span of about two hours. It would be great to be able to "twitter" to all the participants in a storytime to remind them about the next day's (or today's) storytime, tell them the theme, etc. It's also a great way to update patrons on holiday closings and other business.
However, I haven't seen twitter catch on with our patrons at this point. Once microblogs are more commonplace, I think this could be a really good tool to communicate with patrons.
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