23 Research Things - Things 5 & 6

These days I find myself in a bit of a post-Honeymoon period with Twitter and often question what it adds to my professional life. The fact that many professionally relevant conversations and connections happen there is reason enough for me to want to remain but I think it tends to demand more than it gives. That's why I'm having a little difficulty summoning enthusiasm for Thing 5, an exploration of how Twitter can be used in research.

I teach academics about communicating and sharing your research and strongly encourage some form of non-academic dissemination, not only for increased citation rates but for practice communicating your ideas in different modes. Of course Twitter is brilliant for this for all the reasons discussed in the video for Thing 5, but it also depends on where people are comfortable and what suits their communication style. I am firmly of the opinion that Twitter should be optional, no matter what field you're in, and important work-related discussions shouldn't happen exclusively on Twitter just as business decisions shouldn't happen exclusively on the smoking terrace.

Twitter: the smoking terrace of our generation? (Does anyone else remember this episode of Friends where Rachel takes up smoking because her colleagues are making important decisions during their cigarette breaks?)

Part of the problem is the feeling one has on Twitter of shouting into the tempest. There is so much information being generated every second that it's hard to feel you're providing valuable content. For researchers the fear that what they're saying won't be of interest and won't even be noticed must be tremendous. Add to that the time spent setting it up, getting used to it and Tweeting enough to make the whole endeavor worthwhile, I certainly empathise with academics I talk to who just don't see the point. However, I do think it's important to give researchers the opportunity to reframe Twitter as an opportunity for a different kind of scholarship and connection. At its best, Twitter is highly adaptive, timely, grass-roots, creative, inclusive and accessible, which is why I'm still there.

Thing 6 deals with content creation/curation through tools like Storify. I have seen Storify used to link together tweets from a conference before but hadn't thought of it for linking longer thoughts or related items. I think Librarian Errant hit the nail on the head with their reflection on today's featured tools, writing:

I found today’s Thing a useful reframing of resources that I had not previously considered for use in a content-creation context. One of the things I’m considering doing as a result of the 23 Research Things Cambridge programme is start creating some kind of themed collections of links, in a location less ephemeral than Twitter. I had been intending to do so on my blog, perhaps making use of something like Pocket to gather the links together until I was ready to post them. However, I’m now wondering if Paper.li or Scoop.it might be better.

That's a use I wouldn't have thought of either. I do wonder how much more discoverable those resources would be. I have yet to be convinced that Twitter offers much opportunity of distinguishing the signal from the noise. However, I do think it's worth a try, even if I'm only curating resources for my fellow librarians!

Ideas for curated content (please comment if you'd find any of these particularly useful!):
- Conference poster design
- Practitioner research
- Embedded librarianship
- Productivity
- Bullet Journal