All eyes will be on SMU Thursday for the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library. But all phones and laptops will also be ready to capture every moment of the first presidential center opening in the true age of social media.

President Bill Clinton’s presidential center in Little Rock, Ark., opened in November 2004, just 10 months after the launch of Facebook. President George H.W. Bush’s library opened in 1997, when the magic of the Internet was just being discovered.

“It’s very exciting,” said Sree Sreenivasan, a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and social media expert. “It brings people into the lives of the president and both of his terms in ways that it couldn’t have with Clinton or anyone before him.”

Sreenivasan, who has nearly 50,000 followers under the Twitter handle @sree, has been covering events of worldwide recognition through the latest forms of media since 1993.

He says that high profile events like Thursday’s Bush Center dedication now unfold in real time like never before.

“Events that would have been restricted to a few people are able to come alive and touch people all over the world,” Sreenivasan said.

So far, the Bush Center has been extremely active on social media. The center has Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Instagram accounts. The library and the museum, which are housed inside the center, also have their own Twitter accounts.

“The Bush Center’s social media presence has grown rapidly over the past two years and it continues to grow at quite a fast pace,” Hannah Abney, director of media relations at the center, said. “We find it to be a really effective way to communicate with our audience.”

Other presidential libraries have seen similar results. Most of the other 12 libraries now have Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The Bush Center has also been using the Twitter hashtag #bushcenter to post updates and pictures on Twitter and Instragram.

These keywords have helped Bush and his team communicate with the public. But just as social media allows The Bush Center to circulate its messages, critics have the same ability to make their voices heard.

“It’s not going to be all positive for President Bush,” Sreenivasan said. “This is an opportunity for his critics to be vocal.”

Protests are just starting to hit the streets near SMU, but Twitter accounts, such as @PeoplesResponse, have been actively speaking out against the Bush Center since February.

CODEPINK, another protest group has over 18,000 followers and tweeted Monday and Tuesday against the former president and his administration.

Despite the criticism, the center said it supports all forms of conversation.

“We believe in people’s right to express their opinions,” Abney said.

Cindy Royal, a journalism professor at Texas State University, agreed that social media has helped the public become more involved in reporting.

“You’re not just hearing from the reporter on the scene anymore, but from everyone around them,” Royal said.

The Daily Campus and SMU-TV will be live-tweeting coverage all day with the hashtag #gwbsmu.