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Librarians and libraries active on Twitter may be familiar with what is affectionately known as “library twitter,” which is made up of library workers, users and supporters. This group includes libraries, librarians, staff, academics, patrons, authors and others, who work closely with library and library adjacent occupations. The phrase is often invoked when this group of Twitter users responds to a particularly polarizing or enthusiastic statement on libraries. These responses range from embracing a celebrity whose first trip to the library in 23 years results in a “seriously. Go to the library. It is a delight.” Tweet[1] to scathing criticism of an article proposing the elimination of libraries and replacing them with Amazon (Grothaus, 2018). As described in an entry on the ACRL blog, the benefits of library twitter are many, including staying connected with the profession and the “fun stuff” (DeWitt, 2019). Many times these two combine to create a viral tweet that highlights topics in librarianship that are both important and fun. An excellent example of such a tweet is Orkney library’s twitter thread about the online video game Fortnite, which includes information on the game along with an excellent pun referencing a Dusty Springfield song[2]. In a win-win situation, the viral nature of this tweet surely brought Fortnite to the attention of many libraries and librarians and, potentially, brought libraries to the attention of Fortnite players. Orkney library is probably not the only library to have been getting questions from patrons about Fortnite related materials, and also not likely to be the only library whose staff are unfamiliar with the cultural phenomenon that is this multiplayer online game. The tweet thread happily ends with the patron explaining more about Fortnite to the librarian, and there are many more anecdotal stories of students and patrons helping to provide a better understanding of the game to teachers, librarians and the non-playing adults in their lives. The sweeping popularity of Fortnite is comparable to that of Minecraft and Pokémon Go (Anderson, 2016), and libraries and librarians can leverage the popularity and positive aspects of the game for outreach and engagement.
“Is it a film? no. a cartoon? no. an [sic] game, like Pokemon or something?”
The librarian in the Orkney tweet asks the above questions to...