2023-02-09: Twitter API changes may affect LibAnswers, LibGuides, and LibCal

Springy_Sean

Last week Twitter announced an impending change to their API pricing structure with little warning. They have yet to disclose many further details, though we are watching for additional communication.

If/when they make changes, those changes may disrupt Springshare's integration with Twitter in LibAnswers, LibCal, and LibGuides in the near future (potentially starting Monday, Februrary 13, 2023), rendering it unable to:

• post or retrieve Twitter public messages / direct messages
• retrieve Twitter hashtags, mentions, or likes

Additionally, we have reduced the number of times we request/post updates via their API to every 30 minutes, based on usage in our systems. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

We continue to monitor the situation and will keep you informed about Twitter's plans and how they might impact usage within Springshare products.

Thank you, as always, for being a Springshare customer.

Note:  Twitter has made recent changes in the past week that affect embedded Twitter content. You can review our post here for more information on this topic.

Carla_Be

Hello @Springy_Sean, actually today we have noticed that our Twitter integrations such as, embedding the feed of a Twitter account in a LibGuide don't work anymore. 😥 Is there any hope of an alternative solution?Thank you for letting us know.

Best wishes from Switzerland,

Carla (United Nations Library Geneva)

UPDATE : The Twitter timelines are back but do not seem to be very stable.

Springy_Sean

Hi @Carla_Be,

Apologies for the issues here! I just spot checked our own Twitter embed in LibGuides, and everything looks like its loading normally at the moment.

With widget embed issues, I first recommend making sure the browser level is free of issues by going through the following list:

• Make sure the browser/device is updated.
• Turn off any browser add-ons/plugins that might be affecting page content in LibGuides.
• Clear your browser cache.
• Try accessing the page in a different browser/device, and when connected to a different network/wifi. (If the issue only occurs when connected to a specific network, then I'd contact the local IT team to check if something is getting blocked on their end.)

That stated, if you are having inconsistent results with Twitter integration actions, such as posting from LibGuides to Twitter, let us know in Springshare Support, so that we can triple check everything is working as expected - https://ask.springshare.com/ask

We don't have any further updates on the support of Twitter API integrations at this time, however, if/when something does change, we will update this post!

Regards,

Sean

Springy_Sean

While we don't have further updates regarding Social Integrations and Twitter API at this moment, Twitter has made recent changes in the past week that affect embedded Twitter content.

You can review our post here for more information on this topic

markeaton

Our library uses the Twitter API for other, non-Springshare purposes (keeping an archive of tweets about our college), and it has not been working consistently recently. Each time it goes down, I'm left wondering "is this it? Is our API key dead? Is this the end of our archive?" I still don't know the answers to those questions; it's very vexing.

kmcmillanSLC

Not helpful, apologies (and sorry for "necro-ing" this old thread), but there are two great instances of Mastodon that are geared towards libraries.

https://library.love/about and https://glammr.us/about

Just in case anyone is looking for an alternative 🐘