Transcript Slide 1

Internet Librarian
Monterey, CA
The Blogging Explosion
Libraries and Weblogs
Darlene Fichter
[email protected]
University of Saskatchewan
November 4, 2003
Overview
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Range from
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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
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2000-2003
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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
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Lots of media hype
Google bought Blogger
Tripod, the Web publishing unit of Terra
Lycos
AOL offering blogging tools
Dissecting a weblog
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beSpacific.com
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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
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Time stamp
Comments
Draft mode
Off line editing
Spellchecking
Timed release
Blogging add-ons
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MyMediaList
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AudioBlogger & AudBlog
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set up a email subscribers option
Blogarithm
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phone and leave audio clips
Bloglet
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manage book, music lists
blogs that changed each day
Blogrolling
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Bookmarklet to add links
Pop open the hood
3. Post and publish
Feature rich blogs
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Powered by PHP, perl or some other
scripting language and back-end
database
Two examples:
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Movable Type
pMachine
Pluses
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Timely
Get to the point
Quick to skim
“Human filter”
Contextualized
What’s “Hot”
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www.daypop.com
Minuses
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ROT
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Redundant
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Obsolete
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Links expire
Best before date!
Trivia
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All posting the same stuff
“my cat coughed up a fluff ball”
Misinformation
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Rigor of validating information (rumor) varies
greatly
Bias
Resource for emergent
information
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Source for “emergent information”
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Many times daily
Often before it hits the newsstands
e.g.
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Viruses and hacks – Slashdot
Biz News – Jeremy Allaire’s
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Talks about the fact he is leaving Macromedia
Nothing official on Macromedia site where it
says he’s CTO
Searching blogs
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Google indexes many
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Directories
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Rise of “Google bombs” – a brilliant gag
by Adam Mathes who called his friend a
“talentless hack”
Blogwise – geographic categorical
Search Engines
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Blogstreet
Blogdex (MIT)
Choosing a blogging solution
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Lots of options
Dive in and try a few for free:
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Blogger, Onclave,Web Crimson
Types of blogs
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Solo
Community blogs
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Slashdot – news for nerds
LISNews.com
Hosted locally
or remotely
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Hosted
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Antville
Blogger
LiveJournal
TypePad
Local Server
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PMachine
Movable Type
Bloxsom
Client solutions
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Clients
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FogCreek’s CityDesk, Windows
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http://www.fogcreek.com/CityDesk/
Eastgate’s Tinderbox, Macintosh
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http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/
Just a few of the factors
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Types of blog
Features and functions
Server platform
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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
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Share information
Recommend internet sites & tools
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Waterboro Public Library
Urbana Free Library has a blog called
Construction News
Promote it!
2. Marketing
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Promote library events and programs
Let visitors subscribe via email
Distribute headlines (RSS)
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Gateshead Library
My Pick: Announce movies,
link to movie trailers, reviews
Get interactive
3. Online books discussions
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Let readers post reviews and comments
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Roselle Public Library’s Blogger Book Club
http://bloggerbookclub.blogspot.com/
Staff development
4. Staff development
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Fact sheets on new electronic resources
Tips and tricks
Knowledge sharing
5. Share knowledge – Guerilla KM
 Employee blogs
 Self forming communities
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Story telling and context
Best practices
Committee or a project
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Presentation Blogging for Knowledge
Exchange
Competitive intelligence blogs
Solve IT bottleneck
6. Database for Web site resources
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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
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Reflective nature, adds focus
8. Résumé
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Professional blog
Write about your interests and what you find
interesting
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David Little
Solve email overload
9. Project Tracking and Management
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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
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Collect and syndicate local [city] news and
events or university or college happenings
Be everywhere.
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Stark County Law Library Blawg
Library related blogs
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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
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Lots of opportunities
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Easy to publish
Inexpensive (free)
Multiple contributors
Lighten web maintenance workload
Finding out more
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Weblogs Compendium
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www.lights.com/weblogs/
Articles:
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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
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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!
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Darlene Fichter
[email protected]
University of Saskatchewan Library
List of Library Blogs
www.libdex.com/weblogs/