[Web4lib] Environmental Twitter

[McKiernan, Gerard [LIB]]

Colleagues/

 

!!! A Most Excellent Article / A Model For Other Subject Twitter
Articles  !!!

 

/Gerry 

 

Bytes of Note - Environmental Twitter / George E. Clark

Environment / September-October / 2009 

 

Twitter, the microblogging Web site that enables users to post unlimited
messages of 140 characters or less, became the fastest-growing Internet
communication tool earlier this year, according to Nielsen Online.
[snip] As with any general broadcast communication tool, Twitter can
provide a helpful service to those with an interest in environmental and
sustainability issues.

 

[snip] Any individual or organization representative can sign up for a
free account. However, no account is needed to search all public Twitter
streams ...  A search can provide realtime insight into a mixture of
both public opinion and public relations spin on environmental issues.
The advanced search features of these sites can be used to search
specific Twitter fields, such as location, bio, and names mentioned. The
usefulness of analyzing real-time data of this kind may be hard to
imagine for those new to Twitter and may not yet be realized for
environment-specific uses. [snip]

 

[snip]

 

While few Twitter searchers may be interested in conducting
sophisticated analyses of tweets, many will want to see what specific
individuals or organizations are saying. [snip]

 

When starting out as an active Twitter user, or when beginning to
decipher tweets as a passive Twitter searcher or follower, it helps to
develop a basic Twitter vocabulary. Writer and social media consultant
Greg Pincus presents a simple and useful list ... .

 

[snip]

 

Besides the EPA, environment- and sustainability-related U.S. agencies
on Twitter include the National Park Service (@NatlParkService), the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (@CDCemergency), and FEMA
(@femainfocus). The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration uses Twitter for a number of applications, including
educating students about oceans (@oceanexplorer). Govtwit.com is a
directory of government and related Twitter users. Internationally, the
United Nations Environmental Programme has begun an active Twitter
program, @UNEPandYou, as has the World Health Organization, @whonews.

 

Environmental nongovernmental organizations using Twitter include the
International Union for Conservation of Nature (@IUCN), Earthwatch
(@tweettheheat), Greenpeace (@greenpeaceusa), The Nature Conservancy
(@nature_org), the World Resources Institute (@worldresources), and the
World Wildlife Fund (@WWFUS).

 

Twitter also provides a forum for practitioners in particular academic
and policy fields and news organizations covering specialized topics. In
climate, for example, Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and
lead author of the U.S. Global Change Research Program report, Global
Climate Change Impacts in the United States, tweets as @KatharineHayhoe.
Richard Klein, a climate policy analyst for the Stockholm Environment
Institute and a coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, has begun tweeting as @rjtklein. Earth Negotiations
Bulletin, a news service on multilateral environmental negotiations,
used Twitter to post news from the recent United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change talks in Bonn, Germany, as @enbclimate.

 

[snip]

 

Twitter is but one of a number of emerging social media, many of which
already affect environmental work. Terri Willard (@taikod) of the
International Institute for Sustainable Development has written a
briefing paper, "Social Networking and Governance for Sustainable
Development" that places Twitter inside a much larger context. Willard
posits three key technologies that enable the "social web" and make it a
potential force for sustainability: the prevalence of handheld computing
and communication devices; the ease with which individuals can post,
find, and comment on each other's videos, images, words, and other
content; and the potential of social networking sites, including
Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn.

 

Environmental subject librarians are a good starting point for new
resources to explore on the Web, in Twitter, and in the evolving social
information setting more broadly. Some use Twitter to connect with a
broad constituency. Anne Less, a librarian with the U.S. Green Building
Council, tweets using the handle @alessismore. Lenora A. Oftedahl, a
librarian with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, tweets
as @StreamNetLib. Anne Moser is head librarian and head Tweeter at
Wisconsin's Water Library (@WiscWaterLib).

 

Link To Full Article Available At 

 

[ http://tinyurl.com/yhjsg2f  ]

 

!!! Thanks To George E. Clark / Environmental Research Librarian /
Harvard College Library For The HeadsUp !!!

 

Regards,

 

/Gerry 

 

Gerry McKiernan

Associate Professor

Science and Technology Librarian

Iowa State University Library

Ames IA 50011

 

Follow Me On Twitter > http://twitter.com/GMcKBlogs  

 

There Is No Answer, Only Solutions / Olde Irish Saying

 

The Future Is Already Here, It's Just Not Evenly Distributed

Attributed To William Gibson, SciFi Author / Coined 'Cyberspace