Year of the hashtag!
This is the year of the hashtag! Hashtags (Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashtag) 
are being used in emails, forum posts, blog posts, other online services like Instagram or Facebook and even in informal school or college coursework. Children in particular are using hashtags a lot more these days, as evidenced by Hashtag being declared “children’s word of the year” by the Oxford University Press. (See BBC News Why children love the # symbol ) #blametwitter
Hashtags can be used for all sorts of campaigns and collaborations, some very creative.
A hashtag recently promoted by Red magazine is #redbookday (28th May): “a whole day devoted to the pure joy of books.” Well I can’t argue with that one.
I often keep an eye on conference and event hashtags, whether I’m there in person (e.g. #UoNELC) or just interested in the discussion (e.g. #digitalcapability). And we had a recent hilarious evening reading about and contributing to #eurovision2015 or #eurovision.
One of the hashtags I’ve enjoyed following (OK, it’s been around a couple of years now, particularly on World Book Day!) is the #shelfie hashtag. Put simply it is pictures of bookshelves, but the best are very clever and have a theme. You can find some examples at the Twitter page for shelfie, the Instagram page or at the Guardian (Shelfie-show-photo-your-bookshelf).