I missed the last NJSLA communications task group meeting and while I was gone I was ‘volunteered’ to write an occasional column on library blogs.
This was a very interesting development because I don’t know much about blogs and while I monitor a few I am generally not enamored of them. To me, to date, they often seem confusing, and have low payoff for the amount of time invested.
In fact I think I might even be on record as being mildly opposed to NJSLA converting to communications through a blog.
Once I got over the shock (naïve me!) of being volunteered for something I didn’t love while being out of town - I decided this was a pretty good opportunity. I admit part of my distaste is based on ignorance and not wanting to add another time consuming electronic communication format to my plate unless it could immediately demonstrate that it was well worth my time.
So, Here’s my first posting for our blog.
This is a journey we can take together as I learn my way around blogs. So those of you who know all about this subject might want to take a pass for the first couple of postings while the rest of us get up to speed!
I’ll start by covering blogs and the concepts in general and then bring in library blogs after getting basic grounding in the fundamentals.
OK – staring out from ground zero, my understanding as of now is that blogging is essentially like keeping a journal. There can be one author or multiple authors. Blogs can be highly focused on one topic or just cover whatever is going through the authors mind at that moment. The entire point is to share either with the world or a selected group, or to just paint a portrait of a moment in time.
Here are 4 examples of what I find valuable and what I hate in blogs. These are based on a project that included monitoring blogs on bird flu.
Effect Measure - http://www.scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/
My first blog. I like this one, it's interesting, it’s easy to see if I find a post interesting or not. It has several authors who all post under the name of Revere. Only Revere can author the main posts but readers can submit comments. It is generally updated daily.
The authors are interested in Public Health and Avian Influenza is a topic that has had a number of postings over the last few years. The authors post on many other topics generally related to Public Health. Occasionally they just go off on discussions in other areas. They are highly opinionated and make no apology about it.
Scott McPherson's Web Presence - http://www.scottmcpherson.net/display/ShowJournal?moduleId=1366394&categoryId=116462
I like this one too. Here’s another blog focused almost exclusively on Avian Influenza. There is a single author. He posts generally at least once a week. His posts are in depth and very timely. It’s a good place to check if anything new has happened in this area.
There are several other great ones I monitor as well but now I thought I’d point out some that I check but where I generally leave frustrated because it’s too hard to figure out what’s going on in a quick glance.
Bird Flu Breaking News - http://www.birdflubreakingnews.com/
Actually this one isn’t so bad but I prefer the ones above. Perhaps because I like the filtering of the story through an editor and the authors explanation of their take on it. In this case, for the topic of interest (avian flu), I’m not an expert. I just want to find trustworthy people who seem to take a reasonable view of the subject even though they seem to spend an inordinate amount of their time invested in it.
Pandemic Flu Forum - http://www.avianflutalk.com/
Now here’s an example of what I dislike (if they haven’t changed the format by the time you get to it). It appears anyone can contribute. It looks like it should be useful but the important parts aren’t floated up to the top for me to pick off easily.
For my next posting I will go out and search the web and blogs to get a general understanding of them, how to set them up, how to use them, and how to post to them. This last item is actually the FIRST item on my list. I will have figured it out by my next posting!
Kate Creegan