In a recent post entitled "My Trusted Social Librarian" available at
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/my-trusted-social-librarian/
I described how I have set up a Twitter list containing the Twitter ID
of one librarian (Aaron Tay, National Library of Singapore and a
Library Mover and Shaker in 2011) who I have found shares a steady
stream of links to valuable resources on Twitter. I now use the Smartr
app on my iPod Touch so that such links are automatically downloaded
to my mobile device.
I went on to describe how increasingly I find Aaron's image in Google
searches, for pages which he has shared on Friendfeed, +1ed, etc.
I describe Aaron as my trusted social librarian based on an idea
described in a blog post on Could Librarians Be Influential Friends?
(see http://blog.ouseful.info/2010/10/27/could-librarians-be-influential-friends-and-who-owns-your-search-persona/)
and a folow up post on Invisible Library Support – Now You Can’t
Afford Not to be Social? (http://blog.ouseful.info/2012/01/13/invisible-tech-support-now-you-cant-afford-not-to-be-social/
) by Tony Hirst from the Open University.
Some people don't like the social dimension in searching, feeling that
search should be left to Google's algorithms. However I'm moving to
the view that it can be useful to see some type of recommendation
which is shared 'frictionlessly' by trusted colleagues.
Are any librarians consciously doing this in order to ensure that
their presence extends to Google searchers and developments centred
around tools such as Twitter? I would love to follow a librarian (on
Twitter and Google+) who shares resources about open content, Creative
Commons, open science and open data.
Note I am @briankelly on Twitter and the rather less memorable https://plus.google.com/110503999273000060034/
on Google+
Thanks
Brian
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Brian Kelly
UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, UK, BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask]
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/briankelly
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