San Francisco has recently been all a-buzz about linking Twitter to the city's 311 services. I'm not sure how wide spread 311 is, so I'll quickly try and explain it...it's like 411 (information), but for all things governmental and bureaucratic- for example, say you've been waiting for your bus for 45 minutes, you can call 311 and they can (maybe) tell you when the next bus is coming. Or say you want to know if you can park next to a yellow curb- and if you do park next to that yellow curb, will you end up forking over your life savings to DPT? Call 311 and they'll tell you. You can also use the service to report pot holes, downed trees and other potential dangers and nuisances.

So now in San Francisco you can do all this over Twitter- and this got me thinking about libraries as public service centers, and potential uses for Twitter within that framework. Setting up a Twitter account and using it for daily library information (author visits, guest speakers, special events, changes in hours) is only one aspect of how the library can use Twitter to serve the public. In addition to these regular tweets, the library staff could use Twitter to provide communication during a big event like an election, or even provide public service information during a natural disaster or other significant event. By creating a Twitter infrastructure (staff member or members who tweet regularly and a number of followers) the library will be better prepared to serve the public when clear, unbiased information is really needed. 

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