Blogs and blogging in libraries

Blogs and blogging in libraries

Sheila Webber
University of Sheffield
Department of Information Studies
December 2006

Sheila Webber, Dec 2006

“With Yorkshire’s latest
music export, The Arctic
Monkeys, making it big
thanks to their blog, it’s not
surprising to see Yorkshire
topping the blogging league
Blogging with over a third of internet
users recording their
blooms thoughts, feelings and
opinions in a blog.”
… according to: MSN Spaces (2006) Blogging Britain: inside the UK's blogging
phenomenon. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/07/21/blogging.pdf


Outline
• Blogs
• My experiences of blogging
• Uses of blogs in libraries
• Resources
• Your experience


Blogs…
• Reverse chronological
• Usually only a few people have rights to post
• Comments may be permitted (if spam can be
prevented!)
• May be categorisation, tag clouds etc. &/or search


Blogs…
• Good for news, things with timelines, developing
ideas
• Not so good as a reference tool or to foster ongoing
discussion on a range of topics


Independent blogging
• Blogging for yourself
– Continuing Professional Development
– Blogging the dissertation
– Practice in content creation & design
– Record & reflection on what you’ve done
– Enjoyment of writing down thoughts, feelings
• Blogging with an audience in mind: as above plus
– Sharing knowledge and news (personal/professional)
– Gaining profile & extending contacts


Individual issues
• Would I want my students/ loved one/ future
employer to stumble across this?
• Is it part of work?
• Will it take over my life?


My experience
• Natural Born Bloggers?
• Information with personal slant V1 2003-2005 RIP
• Needs constant feeding
• Collaboration useful, but …
• Technical problems: commitment,
backup, support
• Use of quizzes & freebies to get
V2 2005-
feedback
• Teaching Educational Informatics session:
http://edu-informatics.livejournal.com/
• I’ve stopped …

Organisational blogging
• To support & create community
• To support & manage activities and tasks
• To communicate & create relationships with
customers
• To support educational goals


Knowledge & information sharing – reference desk blog
http://152.20.225.225/reference/
Knowledge & information sharing – reference desk blog
Reference at Newman Library
http://referencenewman.blogspot.com/
Community building & exchange
http://elgg.leeds.ac.uk/

CILIP “communities”
http://communities.cilip.org.uk/
Project blog
http://epublications.wordpress.com/

Project blog
http://brumproject.blogspot.com/

News for users
http://yourlibrarycsu.blogspot.com/
News for users
http://solentlibrarynews.blogspot.com/

News for users
http://www2.worc.ac.uk/wordpress/
“This blog is one of the places where you can keep
up to date with any improvements and notices
which will allow you to make better use of us!”

News for users – specific subject
http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/businessblog/
Educational – reflective journals for a class
http://jennykthelibrarian.blogspot.com/
http://dfahl.livejournal.com/

Part of a search/teach task
(creating a guide + a blog or
Squidoo lens)


Corporate issues
• Acceptable use & level of monitoring
• Balance between personal voice/ corporate
guidelines
• Who allowed to see, to post, to comment
• Staff: education & buy-in (see MULTA project)
• If part of strategy: needs documenting, resourcing &
disaster planning
• If educational: is it dealing with students ethically?

“Staff are now blogging regularly to communicate
internally and with the public, and we consider our
experiment a success. … Following the change in
software we will need to customize it, create training
guides, and begin training the staff on the new
software. It may seem like starting over, but we're past
the hurdle of demonstrating the value of internal
blogging.” (Barton, 2006)


The MULTA staff development project “It has changed the
way we do things in our library. We have formed a team to
implement recommendations made as part of the project. We
are creating blogs to communicate internally and with our
users. We are using wikis for our everyday work. Now the
project has finished, participants are voluntarily running
education sessions for their work areas, often on demand
from the people who didn't participate. We are looking at XML,
APIs and mashups as part of what we do, not strange foreign
acronyms.”
Greenhill, K. (2006) What Kathryn said she'd do... 25 October. Murdoch University.
http://multa.murdoch.edu.au/tiki-view_blog_post.php?blogId=3665&postId=3811


• “well.... school begins, but nth want to
type much. Just have my 1st lessons
on Monday n it's ....Information
Sidenote: Literacy... don't know wt is it... just
Views on know it's kinda boring... thought the 2
hrs... i want to sleep for a couple of
IL from times... bull shit...” (sylvia2005)
blogs on • “I've been busy working on my
homework for Information Literacy...
Xanga basically it helps provide the basic
format for research papers. It's not a
fun class at all! YUCK! As plans go
for that...” (poohbear91682)

Articles
• Barton, E. (2006) “Ref logs now.” Library journal, 1
October.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6373314.html
(Discusses blog to support librarians in reference desk
enquiry work at Michigan State University)
• Educause. (2006) Blog. Educause.
http://www.educause.edu/Blog/645?Parent_ID=645 (list of
resources and links)
• Educause. (2005) 7 things you should know about blogs.
Educause.
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7006.pdf

Articles 2
• HigherEdBlogCon. (2006) April 10: Blogging in libraries.
http://www.higheredblogcon.com/index.php/april-10-
blogging-in-libraries/ (Introduction + 3 screencasts or
presentations on blogging in libraries)
• Wiebrands, C. (2006) “Creating community: The blog as a
networking device.” In: Click06: ALIA 2006 Biennial
Conference.
http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2006/Papers/Constance_
Wiebrands.pdf


Librarian blogger discussion & posts

• Anjos, J. Biblio-blogosphere: the last 25 hours
http://last25.janjos.com (Last 25 hours of posts,
reverse chronological order)
• British Librarian Bloggers.
http://groups.google.com/group/britlibblogs
(discussion board)
• Librariesinteract. http://librariesinteract.info/ (blog for
Australian librarians, includes blog list)


Library blog wikis
• Etches-Johnson, A. (Ed) Blogging libraries wiki.
http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links/index.php?title=Welco
me_to_the_Blogging_Libraries_Wiki (wiki with links to lots of
library blogs, listed by sector )
• Harper, C. and Watson, K. Libraryblogswikis.
http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/libraryblogswikis (wiki about use
of blogs and wikis in Australian libraries, part of a project)
• Hubbard, J. (ed) Liswiki: Weblogs.
http://liswiki.org/wiki/Weblogs (wiki with links to librarian and
library weblogs, divided into “individual” and “organisational”)


Searching library blogs
• Anjos, J. Infolit world news: blogs.
http://www.infolitworldnews.com/
• Bradley, P. Librarian Weblogs
http://tinyurl.com/y6qvhf (Google custom search, 25 blogs)
• Bradley, P. (2006) Librarian weblogs. Pageflakes.
http://www.pageflakes.com/philipbradley.ashx?page=45412
61 (has search options for Google & Liszen embedded)
• Lisworm. http://www.libworm.com/ (Searches 1400 RSS
feeds)
• Liszen. http://www.liszen.com/ (searches 500 library blogs,
Google custom search)


Learning about Library 2.0
• Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County . 23
Things. http://plcmcl2-things.blogspot.com/ (Exercises you
can carry out, to discover different tools)
• Five weeks to a social library.
http://www.sociallibraries.com/course/ (Online course that
will happen next year, but resources will be posted at the
site)
• MULTA: Murdoch University Library Thinking Aloud
http://multa.murdoch.edu.au/tiki-index.php (Australian staff
development project)


Blogs as part of…
• Marketing strategy
• Teaching strategy
• Knowledge Management strategy
• Management strategy
• Life ……


Sheila Webber
s.webber@shef.ac.uk
http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/


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