The microblogging service Twitter has gifted its entire archive of tweets, totalling billions of 140-character posts dating back to March 2006, to the Library of Congress.
"The Twitter digital archive has extraordinary potential for research into our contemporary way of life," said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. "This information provides detailed evidence about how technology-based social networks form and evolve over time. The collection also documents a remarkable range of social trends. Anyone who wants to understand how an ever-broadening public is using social media to engage in an ongoing debate regarding social and cultural issues will have need of this material.”
Highlights of the collection include the first-ever tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey; President Obama's tweet after winning the 2008 presidential election; two tweets by photojournalist James Buck, who was arrested in Egypt and whose use of Twitter set off events that contributed to his freedom; and Green Revolution tweets related to protests of the 2009 Iranian presidential elections.
"It's very exciting that tweets are becoming part of history," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote on Twitter’s blog, "The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact."
How they'll be used
From: American Libraries
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