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 -- Céline Carty English Cataloguing Cambridge University Library Cambridge CB3 9DR