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Hello,

Following up on the thread about (not) getting tweets from the Twitter API older than 7 days, I would like to know if there is any experience providing access to the Twitter Premium APIs as an (academic) library. 

Various researchers have asked us at the Libraries how they could get tweets for their research projects and my answer has been pretty much the same each time: you would need to apply for API access (and accept the Terms of Use), understand that you can't get historical tweets, or pay.
I also point out that (depending on their research questions) Twitter may not provide a representative view of opinions and that they should consider whether it is ethical to use tweets. No one so far has replied with 'yes, all done and great, now can you help me further with the Premium API?' but I expect someone will at some point.

As the library manages licences for access to other datasources, I have wondered if we should and could provide managed access to the Premium APIs.
Although I have never applied for API access, I think individual researchers may have access to the API more quickly than when they need to apply to Twitter. But one person's misbehaviour could also impact all other researchers' projects. And I don't know what kind of costs would be involved.

I would like to hear if anyone has experience or thoughts about this. Feel free to respond off-list or on-list.

Thanks!

Ben

Ben Companjen
Digital Scholarship Librarian
Centre for Digital Scholarship
Leiden University Libraries (UBL)

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Web https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/ben-companjen