Is twitter the future of books?

Although it hasn't hit the children's publishing market yet, twitter is making an impact on the adult publishing world. The N.Y. Times today reported that a new literary journal will be published in several electronic formats including twitter. The journal "Electric Literature", a quarterly, appeared last spring and has received good reviews. So far the stories have been of conventional length, but in November, Rick Moody will tweet a story over three days. The two founders of the new journal believe that electronic formats of many types are a natural for fiction. Mr. Lindenbaum, the fiction editor, said, “The short form could work increasingly well in a hectic age.” Librarians will want to keep an eye on this development and see whether the journal and the format take hold. It's an exciting time to be in publishing and in the library world as new materials keep appearing in a variety of forms that challenge our settled ideas about what reading material should be. (As well as challenging our ability to organize and access the mass of electronic materials.) The children's field will surely be an arena that will welcom innovations as they develop.