You may not be aware of it, but starting 10/10/2010, the Library of Congress is planning to start archiving all messages sent on Twitter that are over 24 weeks old.
The Library of Congress is one of the oldest federal cultural institutions and the largest library in the world. The Library maintains a copy of every book, pamphlet, map, piece of music that is registered in the U.S. If you open any book or CD you will see a Library of Congress ID number. The Library's goal is to archive everything, and it does a wonderful job of it.
On the official Twitter blog, the company explains:
"Since Twitter began, billions of tweets have been created. Today, fifty-five million tweets a day are sent to Twitter and that number is climbing sharply. A tiny percentage of accounts are protected but most of these tweets are created with the intent that they will be publicly available. Over the years, tweets have become part of significant global events around the world—from historic elections to devastating disasters.
It is our pleasure to donate access to the entire archive of public Tweets to the Library of Congress for preservation and research. It's very exciting that tweets are becoming part of history. It should be noted that there are some specifics regarding this arrangement. Only after a six-month delay can the Tweets be used for internal library use, for non-commercial research, public display by the library itself, and preservation."
This is exciting news for archivists, historians and for Twitter itself. I can see the benefit of being able to go back and search for tweets about subjects to find out how people felt about world events in the past. Tweets can provide an amazing time capsule for our culture and allow Twitter users to have a had in creating our own autobiography.
That being said, there are times when you may not want to have a tweet archived. Perhaps there is information about your specific location or other private information. In order to not have your tweets archived, you would have to delete them before the 24 week deadline. But, how do you keep up with which ones need to be deleted and when?
Well, no worries on that front. If you are going to tweet something that you don't want archived, simply tweet it with the #noloc. Noloc.org is a free service that will delete your tweets after 23 weeks, so you don't have to worry about it. Alternatively, you can use #noarchive, #noindex or just #n.
So, be aware of the new change, and happy tweeting!
What do you think about the Twitter archive being given to the Library of Congress? Do you think it is a good thing or a violation of privacy? Let me know in the comments.
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By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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