I love the collective feeling of Twitter - although this unfortunately can mean the Fail Whale makes an appearance more regularly than one would like, especially during the World Cup.
Twitter is a place where people share major news stories, and therefore sometimes where we first hear of major events, as this article from India Knight in the Sunday Times about the death of Michael Jackson and the Twittersphere illustrates. I followed election night on Twitter which was fascinating: from the culty number one trending topic of 'Long Legged Cleggy Weggy' from the comedy show Russell Howard's Good News to more serious comment on the results coming in to the standard of political debate offered on TV - on Twitter I could get a running commentary as well as a lot of humour and irreverence.
This was why I initially got into Twitter - but I have become more and more impressed about the uses for library networking in the last few weeks. #hashtags make it really easy to follow things like #cam23. Following librarians means I hear about important library news stories instantly - such as the KPMG report which suggested cuts in professional staff in public libraries among other things - and can follow the reactions of librarians. This is a really invaluable learning tool for someone at the beginning of their career like myself. I can now get an idea of what's being said at conferences without actually attending - I followed Tweets from the CILIP New Professionals Conference 2010 from other graduate trainees who were there: a brilliant way to get ideas and information immediately and from miles away. I feel Twitter keeps me better informed and part of a larger community of librarians which is fantastic, and unavailable anywhere but Twitter.
Collective jokes and news, sharing information and being part of a network of librarians - this is the point of Twitter for me!
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