2. Why should we blog?
Part of a drive to promote our collections
and services with our users/readers.
Increase our profile and visibility amongst
librarians in CB and beyond.
Promote our subject area.
Gives forum to talk about professional
issues (i.e. Librarian working on archival
materials?).
It can be fun!
3. Why a team blog?
Present us as a team.
Make use of each of our expertise and
what we observe.
Different bloggers write differently ->
more interesting blog.
Shared blog-load.
It can be fun!
4. 4
But, erm, I might have nothing to
write about?
• It would be great if all members of the Marshall
Crew felt they wanted to contribute.
• No pressure! Not all of us have to blog to make
this work!
• But the following might make considering it
easier:
1. posts could be short (max. 500 words)
2. Could be about treasures or ephemera in the
collection (including bindings or illustrations).
3. Daily discoveries or enquiries.
4. Other reflections.
5. 5
Do think
• that you can contribute and that what you
are thinking is of interest to others (at
least: I want to know what you are
discovering, doing, what you are
wondering about!)
6. 6
Don’t think
• even a fairly factual blog post is boring.
• this is about being witty and being an
accomplished writer (if you are, that’s fine
too, of course).
• this is meant to be scholarly or present
your deepest personal perspective (unless
you want to, or feel that you can!)
7. 7
Name and various fixed elements
of a Marshall team blog
• The following slides give you a couple of
suggestions, and ideas I have had, please
let me know if you have other ideas, and
maybe we can find a result which most of
us think is ‘okay’.
• Do we just want to continue the old blog at
http://www.marshlib.blogspot.co.uk/ , or
maybe start from fresh?
8. Alternative/new start?
• We could move to Wordpress, or change
the banner of our blog...
• I’m struggling to come up with anything
better than “Marshall Library Blog”, as we
don’t want to reduce the blog by name to
“Economics”... If anyone has a brilliant
idea... Maybe DevEconCam blog? Or
DECam blog ?
8
9. 9
How we could organise
a team blog
If we are moving to another layout, the
blog needs a tag line (for another
example see
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.co.uk/?
expref=next-blog):
[TITLE of blog]- about Economics,
Development Studies and more...
Is that good enough? Better wording?
10. How to organise the
blog
Suggestion for ‘mission statement’ (the
“About” bit of the blog):
[TITLE of blog] is primarily a blog
about Economics and Development
Studies at Cambridge’s Marshall Library,
In addition we hope to touch on wider
issues which are on the minds of the
librarians and members of the Faculties
we serve.
11. How to organise the
blog
We could make a preliminary list of potential topics -> Can we as a team
sustain writing a blog?
If those who want to participate send me a couple of topics or items the would like
to write about (3-5 topics please), we could take it from there.
Examples for topics (nb: I couldn’t necessarily write about these!):
1. recent Hagelberg or Jones donation (1. an overview post with link to all items
catalogued, but then 2. also about specific items in these donations)
2. A post about a specific rare book/a group of books/ephemera from our collections
3. Marking the birthday of famous econonimsts/academics/industrialist/social reformer
(e.g. Anthony Barnes Atkinson (b. 1944)); for ‘inspiration’ see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_economists !
4. Odd bits and bobs which might tie in with a call for “help” / support (e.g. the Austin
Robinson archive on microfilm)
5. New eresources/ebooks or about new/existing services (e.g. Bankscope when it
starts, Scanning requests)
6. Explaining policies, or procedures (e.g. 50 Shades of Renewals)
7. Newly-processed books which justify a post (e.g. Mishkin books hitting 40, if we go
that far!)
12. How to organise the
blog
Write a couple of test posts to see
how it could work.
Once first drafts/posts ready, have
“production database” to see how
long that would last us.
13. Launch & first few
weeks?
At launch
6-8 posts ready
After launch:
We should promote this on various
mailing lists, our web page and via
twitter via Faculty mailinglists
14. 14
Previously, I had added a link to the
blog and tag line in my Thunderbird
signature file, i.e. every one of my
emails promoted the MusiCB3 blog!
have at least 1 or 2 posts on “back
burner” for a rainy day
But keep on writing.
15. Getting inspired to write by
New acquisitions
Stumbled-upon items/discoveries
Enquiries / reader’s work
current affairs / events (i.e. death of a economist;
change of a library, such as if/when LE will move
out of Mill Lane, etc.)
experiences of daily work
Treasured collection items
Newly discovered economics web pages or e-
resources, or standard but neglected sources we
come across in our work
16. Getting inspired to write by
describing specific tasks/issues in your
area
interacting with each other’s posts by
linking to other posts of our team blog
17. What works?General:
–1 idea -> go straight for it
–Aim for 500 words max (shorter is
better)
–Aim for a sprinkling of links (to
people, institutions, resources)
–Link to existing blog posts (own or
other, including those at CUL!)
18. What works?General:
–Add at least 1 copyright-free (I can
advise) photo -> visual focus
–1 person (me?) manages production
“pipeline”
– at least 1 or 2 people to be able to
add blog posts (I’m happy to
do/share this); everyone could learn
this (it’s dead easy – even I can do
it!)
19. What doesn’t work?• General
– Posts which are too long (anything nearing
1,000 words should be split across two
posts)
– Not enough links
– Too many links
– Too long paragraphs!
– Trying to be current, and it’s not (it’s fine to
be non-current, a blog is not a news
channel!)
20. Known UnknownsWill the Blog be read? Will we get
comments?
–My experience is that some
comments are made in person/by
email
–It’s rarer to have comments on Blog
itself
• Readership?
–Outreach -> who cares if no-one
reads it?
