Micro-blogging practices in Canadian public libraries: A national snapshot

Abstract

This paper reports the first phase of a study examining Canada’s public library sector’s micro-blogging practices. Results of a national survey of public library ( n=71) Twitter practices and an analysis of Twitter followers from one library are presented. Five themes are proposed as a future research agenda: community size and population density; managing the public library’s Twitter voice; the potential for controversy; the library as the community’s daily digest; and the network effects of community building. As the first national study, a contribution is made to advancing research on micro-blogging from the public library’s distinct institutional perspective.