Even if you’re not a celebrity or someone who has a lot of followers on Twitter, as long as you have a Twitter account and have sent out “tweets” then you can congratulate yourself because your tweet or tweets are now archived in the Library of Congress – the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books.

The official Library of Congress Twitter account (@librarycongress) sent out a tweet early yesterday about it acquiring the entire Twitter archive but didn’t give the full details.

A few hours later, they sent out another tweet but this time providing a link to their official blog post regarding the acquisition of the entire Twitter archive.

Here’s more from their official blog post:

Have you ever sent out a “tweet” on the popular Twitter social media service? Congratulations: Your 140 characters or less will now be housed in the Library of Congress.

That’s right. Every public tweet, ever, since Twitter’s inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. That’s a LOT of tweets, by the way: Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets every day, with the total numbering in the billions.

We will also be putting out a press release later with even more details and quotes. Expect to see an emphasis on the scholarly and research implications of the acquisition. I’m no Ph.D., but it boggles my mind to think what we might be able to learn about ourselves and the world around us from this wealth of data. And I’m certain we’ll learn things that none of us now can even possibly conceive.

The Library of Congress points out some important tweets that have been sent the past few years – the first ever tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (http://twitter.com/jack/status/20), President Obama‘s tweet about winning the 2008 election (http://twitter.com/barackobama/status/992176676) and a couple of tweets sent by James Buck, a photojournalist who was arrested in Egypt and then freed because of a series of events set into motion by his use of Twitter (http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/786571964) and (http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/787167620) which I blogged about – Student Uses Twitter To Get Out Of Jail.

If you’re a Twitter user, you can now proudly say “my writings are archived in the Library of Congress”. Hehe.. Btw, this means that all 1,201 of my tweets are now part of the Library of Congress. I wonder how someone can access those tweets and how the Library of Congress has organized it? Maybe I could visit the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and find out when I go there in July. :D

Twitter is expected to make its own announcement on its blog later today from “Chirp“, the official Twitter Developer Conference held in San Francisco, California.

James Karl Buck

James Karl Buck, an American student working on a photography project in Egypt for his master’s thesis was arrested together with his interpreter while taking photographs of local anti-government protests over low wages and rising food prices. He was able to get out of jail with the help of Twitter*.

James Karl Buck was released from a Mahalla jail after sending a one-word blog post from his cell phone through the Twitter Web site. The message — “Arrested” — alerted all of his friends on the site of his detention.

When his college found out about the situation, they hired a lawyer who then got him out of prison. Now that he’s a free man, Buck is using his Twitter network (611 followers as of writing) to help free his friend Mohammed Maree.

Mohammed Maree

“He’s only in prison … because he wanted to help me,” Buck said. “Now I’ve got to repay the favor.”

Mohammed Maree was an Egyptian veterinary student who offered to be his interpreter and help him with his project. Maree is still being detained in prison as of this moment.

CNN’s full story here

‘m currently following Jam

If you’d like to get updates regarding this story and/or join in helping free Mohammed Maree from jail, you can follow James Buck on Twitter – http://twitter.com/jamesbuck or on his personal blog Journalism is Not a Crime.

*Twitter is a social-networking blog site that allows users to send status updates, or “tweets,” from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook in less than 140 characters.

*photos taken from CNN.com