#curatecamp and harnessing the hashtag

Posted July 28, 2014 by L. Kelly Fitzpatrick

Sometimes when you can’t make it to a conference, browsing through updates as posted on Twitter might be the next best thing. As a grad student, conferences can be far away, expensive, and dare to tempt us away from professional and academic obligations – even if existing as professional and academic obligations in themselves. When the forces align to make your attendance to a conference or convention happen, those select days of talks, panels, and cordial coffee intermissions can be great – but when the time just isn’t right to hop on the conference bandwagon, catching wind in the sail of their hashtags can suffice.

CURATECamp quickly approached in a flurry of hyperlinks. After weeks of registration forms sitting in browser tabs forgotten amid wishy-washy indecisiveness about travel reservations, I regrettably made the decision not to attend. But that didn’t stop my desire to be tuned into the talks, project sharing, and collaboration stimulated by conference events like Curate Camp. As threads began erupting under the hashtag #curatecamp, I was suddenly enabled to click and contribute through topics ranging from practical tools for digital curation to the preservation of internet memes. Most notable were the attendees who tested the waters with prospective ideas open to conversation and those who shared projects further down the line of development. For instance, oneterabyteofkilobyteage photo op, a Tumblr supported project which generates screenshots of websites originally hosted on Geocities as salvaged in 2009 to create a compelling collection of content. While significant in themselves, projects such as these stimulated further discussion and spurred the consideration of further projects – if in a format of 140 characters or less.

As conference commotion raged on states away, the ability to engage with pieces of the larger discussion and add my own contributions made me take a good hard look at how Twitter is taking steps toward changing how conference dialogues are created and contributed to, as well as engaging interested parties unable to make it to the event in person. Boosting connectivity and collaboration across perspectives, physical locations, and browsers – Twitter is a tool you should be taking advantage of on and off the conference circuit.