Hashtags in Pwaise of the Twapper Keeper

It all started last month when I realized QuoteURL was (sadly) no longer functional, I had a small conference worth of tweets I didn't want to lose after the two week Twitter search grace period, and began scrambling frantically for free web-based Twitter archiving alternatives.

Enter TwapperKeeper.com

Seriously, how can you resist ripped Velcro school nostalgia combined with Twitter?

Initially I thought Twapper Keeper wouldn't work retroactively to capture the search results but it did much to my relief. Trust an 80s-inspired product to go retro appropriately! All 469 small conference tweets (#pncmla09) are there in the 500 limit view and I also set up Twapper Keeper for an enormous conference with low Twitter participation from last week (#eval09)

Then I went and subverted the presenters of today's webcast from the Medical Library Association (MLA, Cut the Cord: Connecting to our Mobile Users) by about six minutes when I set up a Twapper Keeper for a 2 hour presentation that has over 500 tweets thus far (#mlamobile). That was one great presentation by the way, check out the archive and the DVD when it's available later if you missed it.

In retrospect a unique hashtag may be better because the original plan of #mlawebcast & reusing it might result in a massive archive of confusion: which #mlawebcast when? We are librarians after all, I'm sure we'll start referencing points from previous MLA webcast hashtags along with future tweets or whatever incarnation social media takes by the Spring 2010 webcast.

WTHashtag.com looks pretty cool as well (#mlamobile) with the ability to add a comprehensive definition of the hashtag, generate statistics and a transcript. I'm concerned about the number discrepancy (546 to Twapper Keeper's 566 currently) and I'm not sure how long the results hang around for reference.

I still miss QuoteURL for its ability to create Twitter conversation threads though and am glad the original reason why still works (one, two, three, and four) although I'll back that up right now.

Friday Foolery #4: The 1947 librarian

We've come a long way, baby. I make sure I watch this librarian vocational film once in a while to remind myself that this was cutting edge technology and information about the field at the time it was produced.

What will librarians (or whatever the job title turns into) of 2069 refer to in their era about ours? My great-grandfather's cousin is 103 and still sharp as a tack and my grandmother's cousin in her 80s runs our family's genealogy website, so perhaps I'll be a ninety-somethingbrarian and get to offer my own perspective on whatever media we're using then!

(above is an embedded video which may not show up in RSS feeds, it's from the Internet Archive and not YouTube)

About 8 minutes and 10 seconds into the film is a perky medical librarian. I share an alarming similarity with her in that my medical terminology pronunciation is currently pretty awful although I'm slowly making progress.

I particularly like this quote that is 9 minutes and 25 seconds into the film.

You will derive satisfaction from a knowledge that your work is vital and essential in forming the kind of world in which you want to live.

I can only hope so. I'm doing my part and thankful that Brewster Kahle is doing the same on a much bigger scale.