When I saw Sarah Kessler’s recent Mashable article Five Things the Library of Congress is Archiving Online, it struck me as being a disconnect — Mashable talking about libraries?! — Mashable is one of the largest blogs on the Web, covering especially social media and tech subjects. I watch it fairly regularly, enough to know that they rarely mention anything having to do faintly with libraries.

When I looked at the Mashable/LC article I wasn’t surprised to see that the first on Kessler’s list of five things archived* at LC is Twitter feeds–all of them. The surprising announcement of the LC Twitter archiving certainly did get unprecedented attention for the Library of Congress when it was announced in April. Many eyeballs that normally don’t pay any attention to libraries sat up and took notice — Mashable did, and it looks like they’re continuing to pay attention. Great! …

I’d suggest that we in the library world watch closely how the world’s view of libraries may be changing to our benefit with the LC-Twitter alliance. When I first came across the Kessler article on Twitter, a few days after it was written, it had, of course, been heavily retweeted. But I was surprised that few of the RT’s were by people I recognized in the library Twitterverse. And of the few library Twitterites who did pick it up, almost none of them mentioned that it was in Mashable — Missing the element of Context, I’d say! Context is a critical on Twitter — It’s not just WHAT is being said on Twitter, but how it’s connected in the Twittersphere — WHO is saying it and WHO IS READING IT — Exactly the sorts of things that future historians will be able to study on the LC Twitter archive!

So, Librarians — Get on Twitter and learn how to use it! The eyes of the world are watching!

*The other four things mentioned as being archived at LC (none of which would have drawn the attention of Mashable without the Twitter archive, I’d guess): election websites, a few Facebook pages, historical events, and news sites.

Eric Rumsey is at: eric-rumseytemp AttSign uiowa dott edu and on Twitter @ericrumseytemp