Shaunna Mireau on Canadian Legal Research

Tips on Canadian legal research from the Library at Field LLP.
Postings are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the firm.

September 11, 2009

Oh Twitter, my Twitter

Twitter is NOT my Captain, and it is also not lying dead on the deck of this particular ship. I have always found Whitman's poem stirring and its rhythms seem to come to me whenever I am of two minds about something. On one hand, Twitter is becoming extremely valuable for filtering, but especially for identifying delicious bits of useful data (no, not del.icio.us/fieldap, that is another story).

For instance, several years ago I was asked if there was some kind of judges training manual. This was not a facetious question, or anything that came out of a percieved 'bad' decision, just curiosity. Today, among the many blips that floated across my screen was this via Twitter:
CanLawMagCan. Judicial Council releases manual for appellate court judges. Could be some interesting reading. http://bit.ly/1aklq9
Twitter has proven very useful over the past few months for in the moment delivery of those "wow, I am glad I saw it" tidbits. Is it useful because I follow a few reliable sources? Would I glean this info some other way if I didn't monitor Tweets? Is it the timeliness that is the value, or the serendipity that shows interesting items among my community of practice on Twitter that happen to coincide with current thoughts/problems/issues we all have?

The question now is, what amount of time should I devote to monitoring instant media.

I am still thinking about these time+value issues. Any insight in the comments would be appreciated. Or follow me on Twitter and share your thoughts @smireau

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1 Comments:

At September 11, 2009 11:40 a.m. , Blogger Karen Sawatzky said...

I have similar questions Shaunna. I like the immediacy of the information I find, and how the people I follow keep me on the leading edge. However, I have also spent too much time on the latest viral video (United breaks guitars, anyone?!). And if I'm off for too long, then what did I miss??? I try to reconcile it by keeping my followers low, and reviewing it at specific times of the day.

 

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