I’ve been talking about Twitter hashtags ranging from #pubmed and embedded librarianship via Twitter for a long time, but that’s not what I’m discussing in this post.

However, for a ‘where are the medical librarians in social media?’ history lesson I will recommend checking out the pre-hashtag medlibs origins of @mla2008 which then morphed into @medlibs* after the MLA 2008 meeting in Chicago thanks to David Rothman, the original moderator before I took on the group tweet reins sometime in 2009 & still keep an eye on today. I blogged about crashing the #hcsm party back in November 2009 and NLM’s foray into social media in July 2010.

On the first full day of the 2012 Medical Library Association (MLA) meeting, P.F. Anderson proposed having a regularly scheduled #medlibs chat as

Trying again. Which hashtag is right? > I am lobbying for a regularly scheduled #medlibs chat on Twitter! #mla12 #mlanet12 #mla2012

— P. F. Anderson (@pfanderson) May 20, 2012

This builds on her earlier comment along these lines from June 2011 – great! J Shore began a strategy to identify a time which is appreciated. The problem is that strategy was at the very beginning of MLA, chances are high recall of it is totally lost by now, and participation is limited to those on G+.

#mlanet12#medlibs I created a Google + poll for the discussed weekly #medlibs tweetchat. plus.google.com/u/0/1032267452… — J Shore (@7shores) May 21, 2012

Then there’s this

@eagledawg Yeah, I know. I’ve been loudly lobbying for a #medlibs scheduled chat, & at MLA folks picked it up. YAY!!! Waiting 4 date/time — P. F. Anderson (@pfanderson) May 27, 2012

An organized Twitter hashtag chat doesn’t just happen by setting a time though as I’m sure Dana Lewis, moderator of #hcsm, will agree.

There are core issues to tackle, and these are just a few off the top of my head in rough priority order:

1. If we have a regularly scheduled #medlibs chat, who is the lead organizer/moderator of it?
2. What topics would we initially like to discuss and how do we get input about future ones?
3. How many topics per 1 hour (longer?) chat should we have?
4. Who else besides medical librarians would we like to have participate?
5. What publicity will be launched to make sure those people are there?
6. What do we envision as outcomes of this?

Only after these issues have some answers should we be tackling When is it? unless we want to have an initial beta chat then move to regular scheduling.

I am happy to help develop and/or organize but want to put this out here right from the start: I do not claim ownership of the concept and highly encourage others to step up to the plate (the MLA 12 baseball sayings will. Never. DIE in my brain). The reason is because my blogging is on my personal time (note dramatic decrease of that this year) and the work for organizing a #medlibs chat would have to be the same. My family and the job that pays me take highest priority. I’m also in the Pacific time zone where 5-9:30ish pm Eastern is squarely in the middle of work, commute & family dinner time on weekdays. I know our population demographics well – this is a major problem.  I don’t have the solutions but do know by crowdsourcing we can come up with a game plan with great ideas.

* Edit: aww

@medlibs Happy 4th TwBirthday! You’ve been around since 23 May 2008! twbirthday.com/medlibs/

— TwBirthday (@TwBirthday) May 22, 2012