Today’s post comes from National Archives Office of Strategy and Communications staff writer Rob Crotty.
In honor of our Bill of Rights Twitter Contest, we thought it was high time to review all the tweeting that goes on in the National Archives family. While our tweets may be short, they are many, and so to help you navigate the micro-blogging waters, we’ve put together a short list that describes what our separate Twitter accounts do. So, check out the list below, and follow your favorites!
- @ArchivesNews: Designed to be your one-stop-Twitter-shop for all things Archival, the @archivesnews Twitter feed is a hodgepodge of links to historic goodness. Think of @archivesnews as the hub of spokes in a wheel, from here you can connect to the latest Piece of History, Press Release, speech from Archivist Ferriero, document of the day or … background history on Teddy bears?
- @FedRegister: Consider this Uncle Sam’s personal Twitter account. Routinely updated, the Federal Register’s Twitter account is a great way to keep tabs on what’s going on in the Federal Government. Want to know what the EPA is doing to keep the air clean? Look no further. What about the latest documents signed by President Obama? If you need to be in-the-know when you’re on the go, this is a great resource.
- @JFKlibrary: It’s no surprise that JFK’s most famous line fits in a Twitter post: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” is a mere 69 characters long. The man knew how to fit a lot into a little bit of text. If you’re a JFKophile there is no better stream to follow than @JFKlibrary. It has the latest on the happenings at the Presidential Library and often links to third-party sites that share in their appreciation of our 35th President.
- @Kennedy1960: It’s the 50th anniversary of the election of President Kennedy this year, and while JFK wasn’t tweeting on the campaign trail, this Twitter stream might have you thinking differently. Using quotes from the man himself, this Twitter account followed on JFK from the campaign trail and won’t stop until he hits the White House.
- @EisenhowerNews: Speaking of 50th anniversaries, the anniversary of Eisenhower’s farewell address is this January, and the man’s library will be covering it on their Twitter stream, along with the latest happenings at the library itself. While Eisenhower may have been wary of the vast military-industrial complex, Twitter apparently gets a green light.
- @NARA_RecMgmt: The title says business, but the tweets say fun and informative. For people interested in the actual how-to of records management–how is it that we capture and preserve President Obama’s e-mails, after all–there is no better Twitter account than this. This feed is run by the same Twitter-savvy folks who manage the Records Express blog.
- @DocsTeach: One of our most active Twitter accounts, @DocsTeach not only provides its followers with the latest teacher-related goodness coming out of the National Archives, but also posts on interesting documents, important meetings, and new blog posts from a suite of Archives-related blogs.
- @DiscoverCivWar: Love the Civil War? Love the Civil War in 140 characters or less? Launched in conjunction with the National Archives Discovering the Civil War exhibit, you’d be hard pressed to find a more amusing way to keep track of neat Civil War facts than this Twitter feed. Updated at least daily, this feed is a great escape for any Civil War history buff.