Senate History Just Got a Little More Social

The U.S. Senate Historical Office has just debuted a Twitter feed designed to highlight the digital collections available on its website.

"Technology changes," says chief Senate historian Donald Ritchie, "and we must constantly adjust" to the ever-changing demands of the public.

@SenateHistory went live yesterday, and already has nearly two hundred followers. The opening tweet shone a spotlight on the office's extensive resources on the Senate Watergate committee (the infamous break-in celebrated its forty-first anniversary yesterday).

Beth Hahn, historical editor at the Senate Historical Office, said that they are also considering expanding their social media presence to Facebook, as well as other platforms. "We know the National Archives has been doing a lot with Pinterest," she related. Even YouTube is not out of the question -- while most of the Senate oral histories, a major role of the office, are not videotaped, Hahn said that there's a great deal of rare and interesting footage of committee hearings -- including the Watergate hearings -- in the Senate archives.