Blog Ethics!

Karen posted this yesterday — probably about the same time I was looking at it and pondering a blog post! Well done Karen!

http://freerangelibrarian.com/archives/120904/ethics_at_last.php

Follow the links in her post to the other links. I’m tickled to see a PhD candidate looking at Blog ethics. I am just forming my thoughts about LIS Weblogs, librarians and information for research and possibly my dissertation at UNT. Just scratching the surface with a literature review, Dr. Laurel Clyde’s book Libraries and Weblogs, and a first stab at a research proposal whets my appetite for more!

David Weinberger, in the C-SPAN video, I linked to yesterday tells the crowd at the LOC that blogs are so wonderful because they are in the moment and will have typos ( because of the speed posts are written and published) etc. He also says he would trust the blogosphere as a whole more than the traditional broadcast media! Wow. Give that speech a listen/view, read Karen’s thoughts about blogging:

I also feel that as librarians our “code” has to go even farther than in the examples I cite at the beginning of this entry. We are the standard-bearers for accurate, unbiased information. Blogs filled with typos, half-baked “facts,” misrepresentations, copyright violations, and other egregious and unprofessional problems do not represent us well to the world. (Karen, you rock!)

and ponder how this immediate form of communication will impact librarians in the next few years:

Conferences
New Products
Publishing in general
Smaller libraries that suddenly have access to the “big news” that might not have trickled down before.

And I agree with Karen – I post hurriedly but I often go back to correct typos. Especially for conference posts, which I turn in at SJCPL as a report.

Are we representing our organizations in the right way? Ourselves? Our common goal? I love the part about having a mission/goal for a blog. Bloggers – what are your priorities for blogging? Your goals for writing? The minute a blog becomes ME ME ME I usually check out, unsubscribe that feed and look for another one.

My thoughts ob LIS bloggers personal protocols are here: http://www.tametheweb.com/ttwblog/archives/000568.html and Ten Things a Blogging Librarian Must do are here.