Author: 

That Twitter thing: 

Mary F. Cavanagh is an Assistant Professor at University of Ottawa's School of Information Studies. Her areas of research interest include valuing the contemporary public library as institution, social media, practice-based approaches to information interactions and practices, and forms of organizing. Her current teaching interests are in areas of resource discovery, knowledge in organization, social media, and library marketing and advocacy. 

Meaning and method behind micro-blogging in public libraries 

Abstract: 

Engagement and participation are key concepts framing a large part of the social media discourse across many research domains. As quasi-government agencies public libraries increasingly value Twitter as it provides a freely accessible, low-cost structure for improved engagement, relationship-building and communication with a wide spectrum of library followers. The Social-biblio.ca project, initiated in 2012, contributes to this work from the perspective of the public library organization. Highlights of a first phase - a national survey of public libraries' Twitter practices - are introduced in conjunction with findings from several pilot projects that explored techniques for studying library micro-blogging. This work then establishes a provisional theoretical framework from which to consider preliminary results of the first of three in-depth @publiclibrary case studies. 

E-mail: mcavanag@uottawa.ca 

Website: http://mfcavanagh.wordpress.com