Using Twitter to Build Communities

Valerie Forrestal is the Web Services Librarian and an Assistant Professor at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. She holds an MA in Media Production from Emerson College, an MLIS from Rutgers University, and an MS in Service-Oriented Computing from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Valerie has written and spoken extensively about web development, social media, technology planning, and innovation in libraries and higher ed. You can find her online at vforrestal.com, vforrestal.info, or on Twitter @vforrestal. You can also find her @vforrestal on Instagram if you enjoy looking at pictures of cats.

Tinamarie Vella is the Library Manager at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York (CUNY). Vella earned an MLIS from Long Island University and an MA in English from Brooklyn College. She was named an American Library Association Emerging Leader in 2011 and has held numerous leadership positions within the organization. Her academic focus is on research trends, diversity and leadership, and media and cultural studies. Tinamarie tweets personally @tinamarievella and institutionally @newmarkresearch.