Kirsty expertly handled link love last week so some of these links are a week old- but I think they are still relevant. So get busy procrastinating!

Web 2.0 isn’t exactly democratic but does it matter if it works?

Jeff Jarvis’s tribute to twitter.

A visual tour through 79 years of Best Picture awards. My favorite poster is GiGi. (more…)

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Superpatron Ed Vielmetti is speculating that Ann Arbor District Library might be getting ready to connect Twitter and the Library. Not that I’m putting any pressure on AADL, but if anyone was going to do it, I’d expect it to be them.

“Once upon a time I built a ‘superpatronbot‘ that searched the AADL catalog via a Jabber bot - quite reasonably you could build one of these upon Twitter’s direct message listings. Useful? Perhaps, especially if I could link a Twitter account to my library card and then be able to twitter

d aadl reserve anatomy of a murder dvd

and have it do a hold on it for me (or return some disambiguator if there were multiple choices).”

You can find the new, announcements Twitter feed for AADL at http://twitter.com/aadl.

If you want to ask AADL staff what they’re up to these days, head to the Library Camp taking place there on March 20. It’s free to attend, and the discussions are sure to fire up your brain.

I won’t be able to attend because I will be kicking off the day at the SOLINET/OCLC CAPCON event Changing the Way Libraries Do Business: Meeting the Challenges of the Web 2.0 World in Arlington, Virginia. I’ll be giving an overview of 2.0, but I’m really looking forward to hearing the other speakers for the day - Kate Sheehan, Jamie Coniglio, Jennifer Howell, and Karen Calhoun. You can still register, and you attend, please be sure to say hi.

If you can’t make either of these great events, you can try for Library Camp Kansas the day before, on March 19, another unconference that promises some great discussions.

If you use Twitter, you know that its servers like to zonk out every now and then. Usually they’re back up and running within seconds, but the designers like to give you something fun to look at while you’re waiting,.

Dembot put together this fun collection of “Twitter Down” art, including some of the trademark Twitter-birds and some more obscure images. Including one piece of sarcastic fan art.

Also check out the Drawn! Twitter feed - which has become a great resource for bite-size links that aren’t quite big enough for a full post on the blog.

Also of interest:
More illustrators on Twitter
What is Twitter? (Wikipedia)

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I came into writing imagining I'd be churning five thousand word essays all the time. But honestly, writing is getting shorter and shorter every day.

Now, with the advent of Twitter--the mini-blog site where people keep track of the minute details of their lives--writers have to learn how to tell a story in a couple sentences--flash journalism, if you will.

Over at Smith Magazine, Larry Smith mused about a suicide letter posted on Twitter--helping me think about "microjournalism" and the art of short short writing. Today I found this essay by new media reporter Steven Clemons and this New York Times article think about the ways you can write shorter and better.

Check it out and write something short:

"Microjournalism is the latest step in the evolution of John Dickerson, who worked for years at Time magazine, and has moved from print to online articles to blog entries to text messages no longer than 140 characters, or about two sentences. 'One of the things we are supposed to do as journalists is take people where they can't go," he said in an interview. "It is much more authentic, because it really is from inside the room.'"

I have discovered Twitter which is probably not a good thing considering how many updates I posted today but it was a lot of fun. And then I updated things on my LinkedIn page  which really was a good thing because you never know when someone is going to take one look at my LinkedIn profile and decide that they simply must steal me away from my current cubcile confinment (hey - it could happen.) And THEN because I hadn't procrastinated enough (and really, by this time it was simply too late to jump back into the name game) I finally decided to do something with my Facebook account which was probably not a good thing considering I my semi-addictive personality to those sorts of things. I mean how many hours could I spend rearranging things and adding more infor about me instead of working on book? Lots apparently. And it's not done yet. Oh dear. And I'm sure that I should update some things over at my home on MySpace but for now, I think it looks good and is doing just fine.

So if you don't get enough of me here, you can find me on Twitter and Facebook and IM where I added Jabber too. One more day of work this week and then I am on PTO all of next week, yahoo! Aside from a book signing on Saturday the entire week will be spent writing. 

Really.

I gave a talk today at the Michigan Library Association: What Works: More My Library Less MySpace.

It was an all new from-the-ground-up talk about appropriate social technologies with some decent (and local!) examples of libraries that are doing Library 2.0 stuff, especially Twitter. I almost always rewrite my talks somewhat, but using the excuse that I wanted to learn to use Keynote, this time I started from scratch. Unfortunately I don’t have a sleek 150K html page to share with you, but I do have the slides in PDF or flash format. The librarians in Michigan are always excellent to talk to and with, and have a great sense of humor about forever being compared to Ann Arbor District Library in things technological. They liked my John Blyberg joke. I heard that Kevin Yezbick was supposed to be live Twittering my talk but blogocoverage seems to be thin. I have gotten a few Facebook friend requests, Twitter adds, and one really nice MeFiMail (MetaFilter’s in-house mail system) from a member who came to my talk and enjoyed it.

This morning I wandered around downtown Lansing and marvelled at some of the lovely buldings including the downtown library. I’d show you some photos but despite all my blabbing about 2.0 Tech, I left my USB cable at home. I get back to New England tomorrow and will be chatting Scriblio with Casey before heading home to a snowy Vermont and a sock sale. Thanks very much to everyone in Michigan for making me feel so welcome.

Why use the same boring old textbooks over and over for writing classes? If you could build your own creative writing textbook with your favorite stories, poems, and excerpts, what would it contain?

Over at Beatrice.com, short story writer Nalini Jones, the author of What You Call Winter, is building an imaginary mix tape that contains all her favorite short stories. Check out her list, and start building your own in the comments section. I'll post mine later this week. Check it out.

How are social networking and instant blog sites like Twitter changing the ways we tell stories? Over at Smith Magazine, Larry Smith muses about a suicide letter posted on Twitter--required reading for all storytellers. 

Finally, graduating journalism student Sean Blanda has some uncomfortable, but practical, advice for fledgling writers. His "Why Journalists Need To Be Selfish" essay lays out the writing market without a single illusion:

"Unfortunately, no one is going to help the next generation of writers. That’s not to say that no one wants to, but no one can. It up to us to help ourselves and each other." 

God bless Journerdism for the link. 

David King has the scoop on people who are twittering about the library.

Think you write a punchy sentence? Imagine your next sentence projected in gigantic letters on the side of the New York Public Library.

That's the kind of writing that artist Jenny Holzer does, stark, gigantic, but brief manifestos that she projects on buildings and walls. Now, Jenny Holzer allegedly has a page on the brief blog website, Twitter. It's crazy to think about this BIG LETTER artist working on the smallest screen.

But we can learn from her example (or alleged example, in this case), learning how to polish our even our shortest posts into glittering, deadly sentences. In a world crowded with short blog posts and the blink-of-an-eye news headlines, more writers are cutting their teeth on the fine art of Flash fiction--short short stories that hardly break a thousand words apiece.

Go check out these flash fiction repositories if you want some more quick reading: Smith Magazine's six word memoirs, quick science fiction in 365 Tomorrows, and short literary pieces at 400 Words. And don't forget the good folks at TwitterLit, bringing books to Twitter.

Generally, I would describe myself as an early-adopter - I like the shiny shiny new things, whether they be gadgets or cool websites or even chocolate bars with 'New!' in a starburst. I appreciate that this can sometimes make me the internet cafe equivalent of a pub-bore, but it is the way I was programmed...

So I can't really explain why it has taken me so long to create a facebook account - but three days in, I just don't get it. I've registered, uploaded my addressbook, been friended (but not 'poked' yet), added a couple of widgets and, er, what now? My virtual friends can contact me by a number of ways, through Twitter or Second Life and my Real Life (or 'meatspace') friends often know my actual address and even sometimes my phone number! So what do I get out of Facebook? Emails telling me that someone has sent me a message? Just send me the message already! The chance to participate in the 'How do you like your chocolate chip cookie?' Poll of the day? (I prefer a Ginger Nut). I also was struck by Jason Kottke's post about open Vs closed networks - he describes Facebook as an intranet - surely less interesting than the internet itself.

So come on - am I doing something wrong? Have I missed a trick? How do I connect with books and with readers and with authors? Am I just suffering from social network overload and is it affecting my job? Am I simply too old? Let me know your thoughts, here, there or other places entirely - if I don't find something good soon my facebook account will join http://myspace.com/jeremyet in a pretty short list of deleted web services.

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

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I am not a Twitterer (yet?) but many people are, almost against their will, viz our own IAGer Chrystie who wrote recently, "I am as surprised by this as some of you. Me? On twitter? I checked this out as an experiment. I am the last person I ever thought would move into mobile online community. I like to read about such things, sure, but do it? And here I am."

And if you are like me, wondering why the heck you might want to get into "micro-blogging", here is "Your Guide to Micro-blogging and Twitter" from Mark Glaser at Mediashift.

There's also a Q&A with the UberTwitterers, founders Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey.

Reading books can be a meditative experience, but some people avoid reading books if they don't have a spare three hours every night. Reading in short bursts can be a valuable skill for any fledgling writer.

Work has been busy lately, but I'm devouring Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch in short, intense bursts every spare moment I can find. Today I discovered a Twitter (the addictive social networking site where thousands of people post short answers to the question "What are you doing right now") site dedicated to readers on the run.

At TwitterLit where you can read the gripping first lines from books and discover the secret author behind them. My favorite so far is "I am in a medical laboratory at the Central Intelligence Agency, waiting to pee in a cup (secret author here)." Thanks to Debra Hamel for founding this wonderful site.

Check it out:

"What is TwitterLit? Twice a day, at about 12:00 AM and 12:00PM GMT, I post the first line of a book, without the author's name or book title, but with a link (to Amazon.com) so you can see what book the line is from. Why? Because it's fun! A quick literary teaser for you twice daily."

Last week at CIL I conducted my first twitter + conference experiment and I have to say, I'm hooked on this tool even more than before. Here's what happened...

First, I recorded quick tweets about the sessions or meetings I was attending. At first I did this primarily for the folks following along at home, but quickly realized that my tweets were being picked up by fellow conference attendees in other sessions /and/ by fellow conference attendees in the same session. Same session tweets quickly turned into a mobile IRC type chat - we used our tweets to provide commentary on the speaker while in session. Folks in another session could get the gist of my sessions without being there. A full conference experience without the cloning! Rockin'. And the folks following along at home? One of my colleagues mentioned "it's amazing how much you can learn about a conference with such short notes from someone else who's there." Indeed. Another colleague directed me to a session he hoped I'd attend. Without my tweets, would he even have checked out the program? Not likely.

Second, I used twitter to find people. While at dinner with my fellow IAGer Alane, I broadcast the simple message "where are you?" (since I only follow 8 people I knew I could handle the answers). Several people responded and wouldn't you know it? A bunch of our blogosphere pals were merely across the street enjoying some beverages. Alane and I headed over in haste. Moments later, my WebJunction colleagues joined the fun. Talk about socially networking.

Finally, I used twitter to take notes /for myself/. You'd be amazed how much you can get into 140 characters. A quick look over my tweets from this last week and I have a reliable conference record, including reminders of things to post and people to follow up with. If my notes are interesting to my friends following, all the better.

I am as surprised by this as some of you. Me? On twitter? I checked this out as an experiment. I am the last person I ever thought would move into mobile online community. I like to read about such things, sure, but do it? And here I am.

What makes twitter work? Once I successfully solved a problem or made a meaningful connection, it was hard to turn back - at least for me. I've learned this over and over again with my work at the WJ. It's not about the tools we use, it's about the connections we make with them - both to people and to information.

What would make twitter better? Groups that you could separate into channels, still delivered by mobile. There are some creative ways to pipe tweets into separate strings, but it's a bit tedious and doesn't work with SMS (as far as I know). Also, I'd like the ability to block individual people from following me without blocking anyone who isn't your friend. (Sorry to my library followers who I inadvertently dissed when I freaked out last week due to JehovahOne's having added me. It was a little silly, I know, but I freaked just the same. Please, follow me again if you like. I promise not to diss you again!)

Rafe Colburn contextualizes what Jon Udell reframes about what Tim Bray mentions. The big question is how big is the new technology club that either 1) you and your friends are all a part of, or 2) you sort of hear about but don’t quite understand or see the need for? When I talk about Twitter to the library blogogeeks at CiL they’re usually saying “Yeah, love it, tweet me.” or “Not for me, thanks.” they’re not saying “Twitter? wtf?” However when I mention it at home, I have a hard time even explaining why I think it’s interesting, much less how it works.

As 2.0 apps are built on top of 2.0 apps and people can give conference presentations about making Twitter talk to RSS via a jabber server to do things with your library catalog, the gap between people who are just making the foray into email, or even blogs, and the digerati grows larger. Clubbiness can be offputting, regardless of which side of the club fence you’re on. Let’s not forget that we’ve got to be putting out feelers and explainers and breadcrumbs pointing outward to what we’re building as well as inwards.

So five days after getting back to the US, I am caught up on my RSS feeds. This is mostly because I prioritized things like getting pictures on Flickr, going food shopping, getting to the pool, arguing about Twitter, and making this little YouTube movie. Here are some things I read that I think you might like to read.

• Chris over at Libraryola does some actual investigating into the hubub surrounding the WaPo article about the library’s weeding policy. He gets a much more well-rounded answer from Sam Clay, the system director, than what the newspaper published.
• Walt asks if SecondLife and social software networks are where our patrons really are. I love the idea of SL, and the immediate potential as a place for geographically spread out people to come together is great (free teleconferencing!) but not a single person I’ve talked to out here uses it… yet. So, for me there’s a difference between going where my users are and trying to make them go someplace I like. I’ll evangelize about the usefulness of the Internet generally, especially for poor rural populations who can use it to save money and save gas, but I’ll wait a little before diving whole hog into SL. The comments seemed to have turned into a Walt vs. Jenny debate, we’ll see if they stay that way.
• Casey (that’s Mad Scientist Mover and Shaker Casey) has reprinted the Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming with a caveat about copyright. My favorite: Treat people who know less than you with respect, deference, and patience, that’s gotten me further than most of what I learned in library school.
• Jenny points to a cool opportunity to be a virtual scholar for the Urban Libraries Council. It’s a little outside my usual interest areas of services to rural populations, but it might be just perfect for someone.
• Rachel at LISJobs ruminates on why online publications still charge for classified ads by the word, and uses the opportunity to mention how LISjobs is still free as in beer.