Blogs and blogging in libraries

Sheila Webber, Dec 2006

Blogs and blogging in libraries

Sheila WebberUniversity of Sheffield Department of Information StudiesDecember 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 with over a third of internet

users recording their 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

Blogging blooms


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• Needs constant feeding• Collaboration useful, but …• Technical problems: commitment,

backup, support• Use of quizzes & freebies to get

feedback• Teaching• I’ve stopped …

V1 2003-2005 RIP

V2 2005-

Educational Informatics session:http://edu-informatics.livejournal.com/


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 blogReference at Newman Libraryhttp://referencenewman.blogspot.com/Community building & exchangehttp://elgg.leeds.ac.uk/

Knowledge & information sharing – reference desk bloghttp://152.20.225.225/reference/

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

Project bloghttp://brumproject.blogspot.com/


News for usershttp://yourlibrarycsu.blogspot.com/

News for usershttp://solentlibrarynews.blogspot.com/

News for usershttp://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 subjecthttp://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/businessblog/Educational – reflective journals for a classhttp://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


Sidenote: Views on IL from

blogs on Xanga

• “well.... school begins, but nth want to type much. Just have my 1st lessons on Monday n it's ....Information Literacy... don't know wt is it... just know it's kinda boring... thought the 2 hrs... i want to sleep for a couple of times... bull shit...” (sylvia2005)

• “I've been busy working on my homework for Information Literacy... 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 hourshttp://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=Welcome_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=4541261 (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 Aloudhttp://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 [email protected] http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/

Blogs and blogging in libraries

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