On Helen's question about locked accounts, I've had both a locked account 
and an open one. For those not familiar with Twitter, a locked account 
means only people who follow you can see your tweets and you have to 
explicitly give permission for someone to follow you with a locked account. 
The advantages of this are increased privacy (you're not broadcasting quite 
so publicly, though you are still broadcasting, best not to forget that!), 
you don't get as much spam, you know who is reading your tweets and you can 
control who follows you. It might be a good way to have a sense of security 
when starting out in Twitter.

However, a locked account limits your ability to take part in conversations 
(since people can't see your tweets or re-tweet them to others). It also 
gives an impression of exclusivity which might put people off communicating 
with you and probably limits the number of people you can meet/network with 
for that reason. While I have been on maternity leave, I've locked my 
account as I didn't have time to deal with looking at my followers, and 
also because I've been tweeting more of the non-cataloguing stuff (since 
I'm not at work). However, I've unlocked again as I find that better for 
conversations, communication and the good things about Twitter.

Having said that, there's been a huge influx of spam recently which can be 
very annoying. I'm not sure what I'd recommend to people starting out - if 
you're feeling cautious then maybe start with a locked account and just 
lurk ("listen in" to conversations without contributing). But to get the 
most out of Twitter, I think at some point you have to join in too and then 
it is a bit easier to be a public account. There's no right answer though.

Celine

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Céline Carty
English Cataloguing
Cambridge University Library
Cambridge CB3 9DR