Hi Everyone.
I am taking a "blogging vacation" over the next 2 weeks.
I will be back at it the week of June 11.
Happy blogging!
Joanne
Monday, May 28, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Case Studies: Week 3- More Blogs
What a difference between these blogs and the ones we looked at last week! I was pretty impressed by most of them.
Darien Library seems to understand the importance of a blog having a specific focus & voice. I think that they have successfully managed this by having multiple blogs about different topics. Their menu of various blogs is well-laid out and not an intimidating list. They also clearly indicate that you are moving to a blog which we have seen is important (Catalyst). This seems to be a good way to get around the problem of many different audiences that will not be appreciative of the same information and tones. In other library blogs that attempt to serve all patrons with one blog tend to lose their 'personality' as they water everything down to appeal to all.
I really liked the Library Lounge! It was chatty, laidback, interesting and linked to some cool sites. It still managed to provide library news without feeling like a mere newsboard. The Categories down the side are good for navigating to topics. I do wonder who the intended audience was though ...it doesn't seem to be fully focused on patron topics, but still did provide some information on library services, etc.
Gameblog!?! Success.
It did take me a moment to figure out what it was, but once my non-gaming brain clued in, I was very impressed! There seems to be a lot of interaction and commenting. The moderators seemed to do well to speak the teen lingo and facilitate without standing out as 'authority'.
Mabry: Wow - much like Gameblog, I think they've done a great job. What a smart use of a blog! The teacher index makes it very easy to navigate the various blogs. Some are much better then others, but I do like that each blog is clearly associated with one person (or by function, like the Cafe).
Both the Neilsen and Scout article underline the importance of a blogging personality. This is perhaps why the Mabry site and Gameblog work because they have Neilsen's suggested photo and profile.
The VCU suggestion blog succeeds in providing a forum for communicating with students - it's a clear topic. I like that the suggestions and responses are posted together so there is no risk of an unanswered suggestion sitting on the blog for a long period of time. Here, you don't have the blog personalities, but I think that it is not as important for this blog as it is focussed on responding to questions supplied by its intended audience.
So, despite some minor flaws, why do I feel that these blogs are better than last week's blogs? I think the key is that they have a clear focus. There is a purpose for each blog and, in each case, a blog seems to be a good vehicle for communicating the desired information. They have moved beyond the mere 'newsboard' blog.
Darien Library seems to understand the importance of a blog having a specific focus & voice. I think that they have successfully managed this by having multiple blogs about different topics. Their menu of various blogs is well-laid out and not an intimidating list. They also clearly indicate that you are moving to a blog which we have seen is important (Catalyst). This seems to be a good way to get around the problem of many different audiences that will not be appreciative of the same information and tones. In other library blogs that attempt to serve all patrons with one blog tend to lose their 'personality' as they water everything down to appeal to all.
I really liked the Library Lounge! It was chatty, laidback, interesting and linked to some cool sites. It still managed to provide library news without feeling like a mere newsboard. The Categories down the side are good for navigating to topics. I do wonder who the intended audience was though ...it doesn't seem to be fully focused on patron topics, but still did provide some information on library services, etc.
Gameblog!?! Success.
It did take me a moment to figure out what it was, but once my non-gaming brain clued in, I was very impressed! There seems to be a lot of interaction and commenting. The moderators seemed to do well to speak the teen lingo and facilitate without standing out as 'authority'.
Mabry: Wow - much like Gameblog, I think they've done a great job. What a smart use of a blog! The teacher index makes it very easy to navigate the various blogs. Some are much better then others, but I do like that each blog is clearly associated with one person (or by function, like the Cafe).
Both the Neilsen and Scout article underline the importance of a blogging personality. This is perhaps why the Mabry site and Gameblog work because they have Neilsen's suggested photo and profile.
The VCU suggestion blog succeeds in providing a forum for communicating with students - it's a clear topic. I like that the suggestions and responses are posted together so there is no risk of an unanswered suggestion sitting on the blog for a long period of time. Here, you don't have the blog personalities, but I think that it is not as important for this blog as it is focussed on responding to questions supplied by its intended audience.
So, despite some minor flaws, why do I feel that these blogs are better than last week's blogs? I think the key is that they have a clear focus. There is a purpose for each blog and, in each case, a blog seems to be a good vehicle for communicating the desired information. They have moved beyond the mere 'newsboard' blog.
Blog Ethics & Etiquette – different standards for library bloggers?
Check, check...and check! I am all for the ‘Bloggers' Code’ suggestions that are laid out by Blood, Schneider, and cyberjournalist.net . The one that most struck me (and I am totally guilty of it…I edit my posts all the time without a thought to its impact…I guess I’ll stop that habit!) is Blood’s statement that one should write an entry as though it could not be changed, and that rewrites should not be done (although others seem to think this is okay if you show the editing with cross-outs and amendment notes, etc) and that a post should never be deleted.
For a library, I do think that this 'Bloggers' Code' goes one step further as the blog will represent the branch, and the entire system. In the same way that a newspaper article would get confirmed with a manager or a PR person before it is published (thank you Martha Joyce & LIS506-Management) a blog would need to be cleared as well. It is, after all, an official publication of the library. Because of the frequency of a blog, having each post signed off on could be a time-consuming process that would negate one of the biggest benefits of the blog – how quick & easy it is to publish and update.
Why are libraries blogging? The Purpose & Design of Library Blogs
This week’s readings seemed to deal a bit with a question that had been rolling around in my head since we’ve started looking at library blogs: Why are libraries blogging? In many instances, it seems as though someone mentioned that blogging was the ‘hot, new thing’ and that libraries should come on board, so they created a blog because…well, because they wanted to have a blog.
We should be using blogs as a tool to communicate something that our current communication methods are not, or to add an additional outlet to these methods. Perhaps the question to start with is ‘what information or service do I want to provide?’ Is it sharing library news, providing a forum for feedback, giving a ‘human face’ to an online library via a chatty librarian blog? It strikes me that we should be starting from the goal we hope to achieve before we decide how to do it. Just for the record, I do think that blogs are a great tool for libraries and would encourage their use where they fit the need. There are a million great possible uses for blogs within a library.
That being said, the adoption of a new technology simply because it exists is silly! If a library blog is created simply “to have a blog”, this will show in its content…unless a reason for having a blog is discovered, it may come across like nothing more than an attempt to appear hip, relevant, and tech-savvy. And that’s none too hip.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Cases Studies - Library Blogs
I think that the first 3 libraries have been successful at making their blogs fit seamlessly into their website. The purpose of the blogs in all three cases appears to be an easy way to keep users up to date on the latest library news and events. Although all three allowed for commenting if registered, I noticed more comments on Ann Arbor library's and Georgia State's blogs (although only a few posts on Georgia States allowed comments - where comments were allowed, the participation seems fairly high). I wonder if this is simply because the topics were more "newsie" and "debatable" than standard library and community announcements. Some of the Ann Arbor posts were very successful at creating a dialogue (i.e. Season 4 Ideas: Player Ratings.)
The Western Springs history blog was quite unique from the others. It seems to act more like a website than a blog, although as a blog, it does provide a forum for discussion and I did notice several comments and discussion. I loved that neighbours would log on and provide extra little tidbits of information about various homes. It seems to be an effective way to gather additional information. This seems like such a *nice* idea - and very engaging to the community. I would totally log on to something like this for my hood and for the dish about past residents and new additions, etc.
The Western Springs history blog was quite unique from the others. It seems to act more like a website than a blog, although as a blog, it does provide a forum for discussion and I did notice several comments and discussion. I loved that neighbours would log on and provide extra little tidbits of information about various homes. It seems to be an effective way to gather additional information. This seems like such a *nice* idea - and very engaging to the community. I would totally log on to something like this for my hood and for the dish about past residents and new additions, etc.
Bloggeriffic...
Some interesting thoughts on blogging in the readings. I had no idea how blogging came to be nor, as many have mentioned, did I think it was happening as early as 1997! I remember just starting to hear about it 3 or 4 years ago and thought it was brand new! I sort of lament that I was unaware of blogging in its early days when it was a small community as opposed to the messy, tangled web it is now.
I liked Rebecca Blood's description of what she feels the process brings to the blogger...reflection, self-growth, discovery of a voice. My first reaction to this was that any process of daily writing would bring the same things, but I have never considered how identifying sites & articles that you deem to be important or of interest could also add to this self-reflection process...
I am a bit intimidated by all of the blogging options out there...Blogger was the only one I was familiar with so it is the one that I used for this blog. It was definitely very easy to set up and now I see that it is one of the most user-friendly as the readings tend to portray it as a sort of the "training wheels" version of a blog. I see a lot of you have used Wordpress...how was it to set up, etc? It seem as though Wordpress might be the best of all worlds: still free and quite user-friendly, but offering significantly more features.
Has anyone tried any other ones and can comment on their experience? Christy does a good job of extolling the virtues of LiveJournal in her post.
As far as selecting the right tool to use in creating a blog for a library, it would be important to be able to customize it so that you could brand it with the library logo and ensure that the user does not think that they have left the library site. I think the choice would vary depending on what the functions the library hopes to use. I would imagine that most would be less interested in networking features as these would be difficult to monitor for mis-use. Of the library blogs in the case studies, most seem to use the blogs largely as a bulletin board so additional features would perhaps be a consideration for the future. Perhaps reliability of the server, ease of use, and password protection would be most important in the beginning?
I liked Rebecca Blood's description of what she feels the process brings to the blogger...reflection, self-growth, discovery of a voice. My first reaction to this was that any process of daily writing would bring the same things, but I have never considered how identifying sites & articles that you deem to be important or of interest could also add to this self-reflection process...
I am a bit intimidated by all of the blogging options out there...Blogger was the only one I was familiar with so it is the one that I used for this blog. It was definitely very easy to set up and now I see that it is one of the most user-friendly as the readings tend to portray it as a sort of the "training wheels" version of a blog. I see a lot of you have used Wordpress...how was it to set up, etc? It seem as though Wordpress might be the best of all worlds: still free and quite user-friendly, but offering significantly more features.
Has anyone tried any other ones and can comment on their experience? Christy does a good job of extolling the virtues of LiveJournal in her post.
As far as selecting the right tool to use in creating a blog for a library, it would be important to be able to customize it so that you could brand it with the library logo and ensure that the user does not think that they have left the library site. I think the choice would vary depending on what the functions the library hopes to use. I would imagine that most would be less interested in networking features as these would be difficult to monitor for mis-use. Of the library blogs in the case studies, most seem to use the blogs largely as a bulletin board so additional features would perhaps be a consideration for the future. Perhaps reliability of the server, ease of use, and password protection would be most important in the beginning?
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Paying attention...sort of.
Hi Folks!
Just starting to dig through the readings, but had to laugh at the very apt description of "continuous partial attention" in Roush's article. This seems to be the norm: clearly it is impossible not to check your email or Facebook if you have your laptop in class, or to ignore the incoming text message just because you are speaking to someone...if there is any doubt of how ubiquitous social software has become, try to think of the last time you were together while a group of people and a funny email, youtube video, Facebook picture, blog post, etc. didn't get brought up in conversation. I might even say that it is a rare evening with friends if some one doesn't boot up the computer at some point to show everyone something...and I think that I am on the older, less tech-savvy side of this trend. I can only imagine that this is even more pronounced with teens, where few interactions would happen without some SS reference or involvement.
This seems to beg the question of how libraries can expect to service and interact with a population that is increasingly involved with SS. Blyberg makes a pretty good argument for the move to a Library 2.0 concept. What struck me is his comment that there can be a transition to more interactivity to remain relevant to younger users without affecting the current services being offered to populations (i.e. seniors, retiring boomers) who may be happy with the library as is. Qingyi offers a good example of this in action on an actual library site on his blog.
Somewhat related....many of you are likely aware of this, but there is a great site called LibraryThing that is basically a site where you catalogue your own personal collection and interact with other users. Some cataloguers are keeping on eye on this as a potential clue to how users may prefer to use and access library catalogues. Interesting. (Any cataloguing maniacs out there? Note how it seems to conform to FRBR ideals!) Wikipedia's article does a better job of describing it than I could...
I also like the challenge that 2.0 makes to the current conception of the lesser value of "non-authoritative" sources. I love my Wikipedia, and definitely think it is a much more valuable resource than traditional resources much of the time! The lack of authority and official expertise is, in my mind, is often countered by the multiple viewpoints or collaboration on a definition that may even create more accuracy sometimes. (ok, ok - stopping short of ranting over the political economy of info!! But seriously, if anyone can add to something or publish thoughts, it certainly makes the importance of your opinion much less closely tied to your economic power. Ok, seriously - back on topic now).
Right. Now back to focusing a greater portion of my partial attention to the rest of the readings!
Joanne
Just starting to dig through the readings, but had to laugh at the very apt description of "continuous partial attention" in Roush's article. This seems to be the norm: clearly it is impossible not to check your email or Facebook if you have your laptop in class, or to ignore the incoming text message just because you are speaking to someone...if there is any doubt of how ubiquitous social software has become, try to think of the last time you were together while a group of people and a funny email, youtube video, Facebook picture, blog post, etc. didn't get brought up in conversation. I might even say that it is a rare evening with friends if some one doesn't boot up the computer at some point to show everyone something...and I think that I am on the older, less tech-savvy side of this trend. I can only imagine that this is even more pronounced with teens, where few interactions would happen without some SS reference or involvement.
This seems to beg the question of how libraries can expect to service and interact with a population that is increasingly involved with SS. Blyberg makes a pretty good argument for the move to a Library 2.0 concept. What struck me is his comment that there can be a transition to more interactivity to remain relevant to younger users without affecting the current services being offered to populations (i.e. seniors, retiring boomers) who may be happy with the library as is. Qingyi offers a good example of this in action on an actual library site on his blog.
Somewhat related....many of you are likely aware of this, but there is a great site called LibraryThing that is basically a site where you catalogue your own personal collection and interact with other users. Some cataloguers are keeping on eye on this as a potential clue to how users may prefer to use and access library catalogues. Interesting. (Any cataloguing maniacs out there? Note how it seems to conform to FRBR ideals!) Wikipedia's article does a better job of describing it than I could...
I also like the challenge that 2.0 makes to the current conception of the lesser value of "non-authoritative" sources. I love my Wikipedia, and definitely think it is a much more valuable resource than traditional resources much of the time! The lack of authority and official expertise is, in my mind, is often countered by the multiple viewpoints or collaboration on a definition that may even create more accuracy sometimes. (ok, ok - stopping short of ranting over the political economy of info!! But seriously, if anyone can add to something or publish thoughts, it certainly makes the importance of your opinion much less closely tied to your economic power. Ok, seriously - back on topic now).
Right. Now back to focusing a greater portion of my partial attention to the rest of the readings!
Joanne
Monday, May 7, 2007
Hello!
Hello all!
I have a bit of experience with social software, although certainly nothing extensive. I maintained a sporadic blog for a bit from 2004-2006 and am a relatively new addict to Facebook. I am also pretty new to RSS and definitely haven't used an aggregator before.
I am hoping that this course will make me more aware of what is out there as far as social software is concerned. There is so much buzz about it all right now and I think it really will be the next big thing so I would like to become much more familiar with it all.
Joanne
I have a bit of experience with social software, although certainly nothing extensive. I maintained a sporadic blog for a bit from 2004-2006 and am a relatively new addict to Facebook. I am also pretty new to RSS and definitely haven't used an aggregator before.
I am hoping that this course will make me more aware of what is out there as far as social software is concerned. There is so much buzz about it all right now and I think it really will be the next big thing so I would like to become much more familiar with it all.
Joanne
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