Transcript Slide 1
Internet Librarian
Monterey, CA
The Blogging Explosion
Libraries and Weblogs
Darlene Fichter
[email protected]
University of Saskatchewan
November 4, 2003
Overview
What are blogs?
Blog dissection
Emergent information
Finding blogs and blog content
10 ways to use blogs
What is it?
Blog / Weblog is
A web page containing brief entries
arranged chronologically
Can be like
A journal or diary
‘What’s New’ page
Interesting links page
“To me, the blog concept is about three things:
Frequency, Brevity, and Personality.”
Evan Williams (creator of Blogger)
Terminology
Blogger – person who maintains a blog
Blogging – the act of creating a blog
Blogosphere* - biosphere, media ecosystem
Blogrolling – moving from blog to blog
Blogrolodex – a listing of other blogs
Blogorrhea – hundreds of posts per day
about anything
Blawgs, Klogs …
*Coined by William Quick
A peek at the past
NCSA’s What’s New page June 1993
Netscape’s What’s New 1993-95
Librarians' Site du Jour – Jenny Levine,
1995
Dave Winer 1996
Cam World 1997
Created and coded by hand
Simple chronological lists
Librarian’s Site du Jour
November 30, 1995
You've used their publication manual, now visit
their web site. Yes the American Psychological
Association has launched PsychNET, with lots of
good stuff for non-APA members …
http://www.jennyscybrary.com/1995/november.html
Blogs today
Range from
the simple to the sophisticated
Few features to chalk full of add-ons
and little wizards
Interesting and useful to mundane and
completely irrelevant
Blogging explosion
2000-2003
Tools that made it easy to publish
No need to know HTML
No need to know FTP
Add / edit content anywhere, anytime
Dozens of features – dynamic, quick
and easy to develop
Millions?? worldwide
Can you guess what South American
country is a hotbed for blogs?
In the limelight
Lots of media hype
Google bought Blogger
Tripod, the Web publishing unit of Terra
Lycos
AOL offering blogging tools
Dissecting a weblog
beSpacific.com
Accurate, focused law and
technology news
www.bespacific.com
Blog post or entry
Headlines
Topics
Permanent linking to a part
of a page!
Date and/or time
Archives
Blogroll
Daily email digest
RSS Feeds
Other features
Time stamp
Comments
Draft mode
Off line editing
Spellchecking
Timed release
Blogging add-ons
MyMediaList
AudioBlogger & AudBlog
set up a email subscribers option
Blogarithm
phone and leave audio clips
Bloglet
manage book, music lists
blogs that changed each day
Blogrolling
Bookmarklet to add links
Pop open the hood
3. Post and publish
Feature rich blogs
Powered by PHP, perl or some other
scripting language and back-end
database
Two examples:
Movable Type
pMachine
Pluses
Timely
Get to the point
Quick to skim
“Human filter”
Contextualized
What’s “Hot”
www.daypop.com
Minuses
ROT
Redundant
Obsolete
Links expire
Best before date!
Trivia
All posting the same stuff
“my cat coughed up a fluff ball”
Misinformation
Rigor of validating information (rumor) varies
greatly
Bias
Resource for emergent
information
Source for “emergent information”
Many times daily
Often before it hits the newsstands
e.g.
Viruses and hacks – Slashdot
Biz News – Jeremy Allaire’s
Talks about the fact he is leaving Macromedia
Nothing official on Macromedia site where it
says he’s CTO
Searching blogs
Google indexes many
Directories
Rise of “Google bombs” – a brilliant gag
by Adam Mathes who called his friend a
“talentless hack”
Blogwise – geographic categorical
Search Engines
Blogstreet
Blogdex (MIT)
Choosing a blogging solution
Lots of options
Dive in and try a few for free:
Blogger, Onclave,Web Crimson
Types of blogs
Solo
Community blogs
Slashdot – news for nerds
LISNews.com
Hosted locally
or remotely
Hosted
Antville
Blogger
LiveJournal
TypePad
Local Server
PMachine
Movable Type
Bloxsom
Client solutions
Clients
FogCreek’s CityDesk, Windows
http://www.fogcreek.com/CityDesk/
Eastgate’s Tinderbox, Macintosh
http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/
Just a few of the factors
Types of blog
Features and functions
Server platform
Unix or Windows or MAC
IT help
Scripting languages
Security and privacy
Blogging Software for Intranet
Applications. ONLINE, January 2003
10 ways to use blogs
1. News
Share information
Recommend internet sites & tools
Waterboro Public Library
Urbana Free Library has a blog called
Construction News
Promote it!
2. Marketing
Promote library events and programs
Let visitors subscribe via email
Distribute headlines (RSS)
Gateshead Library
My Pick: Announce movies,
link to movie trailers, reviews
Get interactive
3. Online books discussions
Let readers post reviews and comments
Roselle Public Library’s Blogger Book Club
http://bloggerbookclub.blogspot.com/
Staff development
4. Staff development
Fact sheets on new electronic resources
Tips and tricks
Knowledge sharing
5. Share knowledge – Guerilla KM
Employee blogs
Self forming communities
Story telling and context
Best practices
Committee or a project
Presentation Blogging for Knowledge
Exchange
Competitive intelligence blogs
Solve IT bottleneck
6. Database for Web site resources
Post recommended sites with
annotations to your web site in
browsable topics
Have a search of links
Have a “what’s new” in web site links
Professionally
7. Professional / personal development
Reflective nature, adds focus
8. Résumé
Professional blog
Write about your interests and what you find
interesting
David Little
Solve email overload
9. Project Tracking and Management
IT teams can use it for bug tracking
Document a more complicated software install
that will have to repeated by other staff
Enable comments and questions feature
Be a leader
10. Community information
Collect and syndicate local [city] news and
events or university or college happenings
Be everywhere.
Stark County Law Library Blawg
Library related blogs
Gary Price – The ResourceShelf
Jenny Levine - Shifted Librarian
Jessamyn West - librarian.net
Stephen Cohen – Librarystuff.net
The power and reach for blogs --search
“librarian” and “library” in Google
Blogging and libraries
Lots of opportunities
Easy to publish
Inexpensive (free)
Multiple contributors
Lighten web maintenance workload
Finding out more
Weblogs Compendium
www.lights.com/weblogs/
Articles:
Blogging Your Life Away. Online, May, 2001
Blogging Software for Intranet Applications.
Online, January 2003
Next issue –blogs for marketing libraries in
Marketing Library Services
Employee Blogs - Harvard Business Review
(HBR) - case study by Halley Suitt titled “A
Blogger in Their Midst” September 2003
Food for thought
A tech-savvy employee has something to
say about everything at surgical glove
manufacturer Lancaster-Webb.
When she raved on-line about an older
style of gloves, sales unexpectedly shot
up. And when she posted damaging
information about a potential customer's
business practices, the deal collapsed.
Is "Glove Girl" a priceless marketing
weapon or a grave security risk?
Employee Blogs - Harvard Business Review (HBR) “A Blogger in Their Midst” September 2003
Thank you!
Darlene Fichter
[email protected]
University of Saskatchewan Library
List of Library Blogs
www.libdex.com/weblogs/