Let’s Talk About It:#LibraryTwitter and the Power of Digital Community

Let’s Talk About It: #LibraryTwitter and the Power of Digital Community

In this Let’s Talk About it blog post, I want to dive into the digital community that I found on #LibraryTwitter and reflect on what it meant to me. Also, grapple with the fact that early career librarians must find a digital community in different ways. 

I don’t remember exactly when I found #LibraryTwitter. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say, I don’t remember when #LibraryTwitter found me. But once we connected? It was on. It became this unexpected pocket of community, reflection, and realness in the whirlwind of early career librarianship.

Back then, I was just trying to figure it all out. I was navigating the new culture of librarianship, which included conference culture, and trying to decode all the acronyms that flew over my head in professional spaces. And then there it was, #LibraryTwitter. It felt like a backchannel to the profession. A place where folks weren’t just talking about libraries. They were talking about power, race, burnout, joy, pay equity, mentorship, and advocacy. It was a digital family reunion, and I didn’t even know I was invited.

One of the coolest things was folks like Denisse Solis live-tweeting sessions from conferences. And I don’t mean a tweet or two. I mean full-on, thoughtful threads with context, quotes, and reactions that made you feel like you were sitting right there with them. Even if your travel budget said otherwise. Those tweets were lifelines. They kept me looped in, inspired, and grounded in why I do this work.

We didn’t just talk to each other. We talked with each other. We hosted live tweet events where we’d dig into different topics. It was powerful to witness the collective wisdom of our profession, especially from voices that mainstream libraryland often overlooked.

It was also a space for advocacy. Real advocacy. People pushed for change, called out injustice, and uplifted one another’s work. I saw folks rally around library workers who were being mistreated, amplify job postings that paid fair wages, and create threads that challenged the status quo. It was fire.

But like any community, it had its shadows. Every now and then, a dragging would pop off. And while accountability is necessary, sometimes it felt more like performance than care. Watching people get dogpiled, even when they were trying to learn, was rough. It reminded me that digital space is still human space. And humans can be messy.

Still, I’ll say this with my whole chest. #LibraryTwitter was a game changer for me. It helped me survive and thrive in my early years. I could reach out, ask questions, get encouragement, and know I wasn’t alone. That’s why I always recommended it to new librarians whenever I spoke on panels or mentored folks. It was the corner of the internet that held me down.

Now I’m a mid-career librarian, noticing that the remnants of #LibraryTwitter are not the same. I tried to stay on there as long as I could, but when I got a notification to check a tweet from Charlie Kirk, who is someone that I don’t follow or racists like him, that’s when I knew the algorithm is a hot mess. And that it was time for me to leave Twitter. I refuse to call it by its other name. People are scattering to other platforms. And I’m wondering, how are early-career librarians finding their people now? Are y’all still on Twitter or whatever it’s called this week? Are you using Threads, Bluesky, Discord, or Slack channels? Is the community still out there? 

It saddens me to think that early career librarians today might not experience the same joy and sense of belonging I found through #LibraryTwitter. That space meant so much to me. Still, I hope you’re finding other ways to connect, whether through newer platforms, group chats, or virtual meetups. We need community now more than ever. So many parts of our work are under pressure or outright attack, and it’s easy to feel isolated if you don’t have folks to lean on. If it means sending a cold email or asking someone to introduce you to another librarian, go ahead and do it. Whenever there’s a call to gather virtually, I do my best to show up. Because showing up for each other matters.

I’d love to hear from you. How are you building a digital community? How are you finding that support, that laughter, that “yes, I see you” energy that so many of us found in #LibraryTwitter? Let me know in the comments.