The 'value' I get from Twitter

I am starting to 'get' Twitter now and was thinking this morning about what the 'value' is that I get from investing time using it.

I may be a slightly odd Twit because I prefer to keep the clutch of people I follow quite small. I check Twitter maybe 6 times a day and I want to be able to quickly scan the tweets since my last post without having to troll through too many screens. I compare it to a dinner party where I can't 'hear' all the conversation in the room at once so I join a small group and then move to a different group of people when I'm ready. So no offence if I drop you from my list of followees for a bit; I'm just working the room!

The value I get from Twitter falls into 4 different categories:

• Firstly, as a professional development tool in terms of libraries in its broadest sense. I tend to keep following people who share links to interesting stuff. Its like reading newspapers in companiable silence with a mate and you share snippets with each other. I follow briankelly, citegeist, mstephen7, gnat and littlehigh for this reason.
• Secondly, its a way to keep informed about business because I currently have a horrified fascination with whats happening in the world economy; bernardchickey is fabulous for posting interesting links as he comes across them.
• Thirdly, as a Koha-ian, I want to become familiar with members of the Koha global community. I want to 'personalize' or get to know who the people are who post to the Koha list. Its amazing how you start to add 'colour' to an image of someone you only ever 'see' as a name online - all from just 140 character posts each day.
• And lastly there are people I know personally, or care about, but don't get to see or talk to very often so its nice to stay in touch. Its like waving at someone across the room

So thats me. I started writing this post to promote a couple of blog posts about Twitter and librarians:

Twitter basics for librarians by Leora Wenger (leoraw on Twitter) and 14 UK information professionals to follow on Twitter by Brian Kelly (briankelly on Twitter).