LOC and the Tweets!

Quick Digital Factoid:

Did you know that there is a Tweet Archive in the Library of Congress (LOC)?  An LOC post confirmed that “In 2010, the Library of Congress announced an exciting and groundbreaking acquisition—a gift from Twitter of the entire archive of public tweet text beginning with the first tweets of 2006 through 2010, and continuing with all public tweet text going forward.”

As of Jan 4, 2013 there were 170 billion tweets available for research purposes.

According to the Library of Congress website in January, 2013, “This month, all those objectives will be completed. We now have an archive of approximately 170 billion tweets and growing. The volume of tweets the Library receives each day has grown from 140 million beginning in February 2011 to nearly half a billion tweets each day as of October 2012. The Library’s focus now is on addressing the significant technology challenges to making the archive accessible to researchers in a comprehensive, useful way. These efforts are ongoing and a priority for the Library.”

But, then, I guess the LOC started actually reading all the tweets,
and the meme
the giphys
not to mention all the cat vids.

So…by 2018, the LOC updated its policy, “Effective Jan. 1, 2018, the Library will acquire tweets on a selective basis—similar to our collections of web sites.

Read the full factoid: https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2013/01/update-on-the-twitter-archive-at-the-library-of-congress/

Probably an excellent idea.

More information is available in the attached white paper.

Blog post: “Library Acquires Entire Twitter Archive,” April 14, 2010
Blog post: “The Library and Twitter: An FAQ,” April 28, 2010
Blog post: “Update on the Twitter Archive at the Library of Congress,” Jan. 4, 2013