Tame The Web

I spent part of the afternoon today reading through a wonderful book called Blog Blazers: 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets. After writing my dissertation on the motivations of early adopting librarian bloggers, it’s nice to see such a broadly diverse group of well-known bloggers sharing similar thoughts about their writing and what makes a good blog tick. Author Stephane Grenier interviews 40 bloggers – many of whom may be well known to TTW readers including Seth Godin, David Armano and Jessamyn West, all sharing their insights in the book.

I’m especially fond of the question Grenier asks many of his subjects: What tips can you share on writing a successful blog post?

Seth Godin’s answers include: Use lists (NICE!), Be topical, Break news and write posts that will be readable in a year.

David Armano weighs in with Find your voice, Do something different, Be true to your brand, Provide value and Only write what makes you happy.

Jessamyn offers these tips –  amongst my favorites of all time for bloggers – Be kind, Be original, Be thoughtful, Be part of a community, Ignore bad juju in its many forms.

I’d suggest this book as a good, informative and FUN read for folks looking to get into blogging, interested researchers looking at bloggers or those working with social media in their institutions.

I realized I hadn’t blogged this, but my article “The Pragmatic Biblioblogger: Examining the Motivations and Observations of Early Adopter Librarian Bloggers” is in Internet Reference Services Quarterly, Vol. 13, Issue 4, p311-345.

It’s been a long time since November 2005 when 238 hearty bibliobloggers took my survey. The changes since then are incredible.

I’ve posted about this blog already but I have to come back to it. A Dominican University Journalism class is using a Blogspot blog to report news and more to the campus and beyond. Our Dean of Rosary College, Jeff Carlson, shared the URL with me and I subscribed immediately.

I was rather excited so I emailed the GSLIS Faculty and the Academic IT Committee:

It’s a journalism class – and the content just keeps coming! The voices are human, honest and engaging. I have learned so much about Dominican and student life from this blog – I’ve added it to my news portal. Created simply with Blogger, it seems to be generating many comments and feedback. I have pointed to it once on my blog but will be writing about it again and sharing it with my social tools colleagues.  Good stuff.

I truly believe this is the future of marketing and engagement – a perfect example of social media done right: sometimes messy, sometimes silly, sometimes thought-provoking…but very real.

I checked in today and found that the posts and comments continue, so here are five reasons I think this is a good thing for the University. This venue seems to be a useful way for students to learn and more:

They are learning journalism skills but also media and promotional skills. Check out the video embedded in this post about the blog’s promotion around campus. Images augment posts as well.

They are finding their voice. “Ya know what really grinds my gears?,” asked one poster. “Mandatory attendance at extracurricular academic activities.” Entering the conversation openly and honestly is important. Learning how to state one’s case fairly and evenly is even more important. A “grind my gears” post is a good way to express frustration and call for solutions. The act of writing it down helps the thinking process.

They are getting invaluable experience in new media. Blogging didn’t exist when i took journalism classes at IU. These skills are invaluable. And sure, blogging will fade away but the next online communication mechanism built on it will be just as important for our future leaders to understand. Imagine: the blogging undergrad of today might just be tomorrow’s library director.

They are interacting with University officials. The “Bullet found on Campus” story generated buzz and one young reporter found herself chatting with Dean Carlson not only about the story but about the journalism program. “After the 45 minute discussion Carlson and I shared, I left his office feeling fabulous about the possibilities DU can provide future journalists. I was enthusiastic to see how receptive, appreciative and understanding Carlson was in hearing what, why, when and how I think new courses would dramatically enhance the journalism curriculum…” Here’s another example of that interaction.

They are asking important questions. This post really interested me: within our MyDU Web site, photos are featured prominently, including some of students who did not know they were being photographed. “Perhaps the mystery photographer was trying to capture the “essence” of Dominican. I still don’t think it would have been ridiculous for the photographer to ask for permission, or at least make the students aware that Dominican was going to use the photos. What do you think about this? Would you care if this happened to you? Do you find it creepy, or not a big deal?” As we all deal with our online lives and “digital dossiers,” asking these questions about photos, privacy, student rights and the University are important in deciding how we might share ourselves. 

They are marketing Dominican University in a way that no PR campaign ever can. I really appreciated the varied voices, the honesty and the range of topics. As I said above, I’ve learned more about what’s up with our students and the way they see the University than any other online offering available. Google loves blogs and future students will find this blog and the voices and it may just help them decide to come to school here.

Well done, DominiNET!

Really – I’m hooked on HBO’s True Blood!

But in Libraryland, the excitement is also building via this new blog “Bella’s Book Club,” a blog celebrating all things Twilight and counting down to the premiere of the film.

Created by Deb Noggle, the blog offers video clips, reviews, and engagement with the mebers of the book club. The good folks at ACPL sent this story along about the blog from Deb herself:

Via Brett Kochendorfer

Google Friend Connect lets you grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. This means means more people engaging more deeply with your website — and with each other. In this video, Google Product Marketing Manager Mendel Chuang gives a short introduction to Google Friend Connect.

Very interesting -especially the bit about ease of sign on via any number of services and adding the Friend Connect to your site takes no programming skills whatsoever. Looks like ratings, friends and comments can easily be integrated. Ways it might affect libraries:

• Folks will come to expect this type of functionality more and more. Sites that aren’t “friendly” might not be the most popular.
• Some libraries will experiment with this as an easy to configure “buy it now” (for free) social option for their sites.
• This could become a popular add on for many Biblioblogs.
• It certainly positions Google to have even more integration into what we do on the Web.

Take a look at the video. What other uses do you see? What misuses do you see?

Don’t miss:

http://www.thetechstatic.com/

The Tech Static, a new collection development resource for technology titles, published its inaugural issue today.

The need for such a resource became apparent when October 15 marked the last installment of Library Journal’s “Computer Media” review column, which The Tech Static’s creator, Rachel Singer Gordon, had been writing since 2002. This left a large gap in the library literature: no other librarian-targeted publication currently reviews computer books on a regular basis. To fill that gap, Singer Gordon created The Tech Static, a new resource for librarians focusing on reviewing technology-related books.

The Tech Static assists librarians with technology-related collection development.

From an LIS768 Class Discussion:

About a year back, my library department (youth services) decided to maintain a weblog – mainly with the purpose of highlighting the collection, programs, and services, and displaying photos of kids using the library.  We promote the blog by word of mouth (although, to be honest, this has method has fallen off since the blog’s early days), providing a link to the blog on the website, and displaying the addresss on some library materials.

Well, almost a year later, the blog is fairly presentable and is updated somewhat frequently (between 4 and 10 times a month).  The author is usually me or another part-time, associate level staffperson (while the full-time librarians have been supportive of the project, they haven’t contributed to the blog themselves).  Trouble is, we have done virtually no work to evaluate this service. Most importantly, we do not know who – if anyone – reads the entries. Yikes.  Part of me was okay with this at first – we’re still figuring this whole thing out, so maybe it’s OK if no one is reading. At this point, though, I know we need to decide whether the service is relevant, and if so, how to make it good.

Thus, the question – how to evaluate the blog? These are some ways we discussed in class:

• Find out how people are using your site with free statistic analyzers – Feed Burner (stats on subscribers to your blog), Google Analytics,Wordpress.com stats
• Observing the number of comments you’re getting, and the nature of these comments
• Asking patrons directly if they know about the blog, how they use it, what could make it better, etc.
• Conduct a time study – figure out how much time it takes your staff to update patrons on services and announcements on your weblog vs. website

What are some other ways you have been able to evaluate your library’s blog?  What ways have you had success marketing your blogs?

I am LOVING this:

http://inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org

We are six librarians working in academic, public, and school libraries across the United States. In addition to essays by its founders, In the Library with the Lead Pipe will feature articles by guests representing special libraries and archives, as well as educators, administrators, library support staff, and community members.

In the Library with the Lead Pipe is intended to help improve our communities, our libraries, and our professional organizations. Our goal is to explore new ideas and start conversations; to document our concerns and argue for solutions. Each article is peer-reviewed by at least one external and one internal reviewer.

I once said to a valued colleague: “The future of librarian blogging will be the group blog.” This is proof to me  that we are heading that way. Not only do these folks have some spiffy graphics and artwork by one of the authors, Derik Badman, they will have their posts peer-reviewed internally and externally. This lends much to the concept of professional blogging. Pragmatic, if you will.

Please take a look at this one. I’m adding this blog to my newly weeded list of feeds. Looking forward to what comes next.

OH! And the tagline is perfection:

http://library.sbcc.edu/2008/09/academic_search_premier.html

I caught note of this via Twitter. Thanks Kenley!

Take a look at this post at the Luria Library’s blog. They’ve turned on video comments as well as sharing an embedded slide show that details basic searching of Ebscohost. 

This so ties into my takeaways from spending a day at IDEA2008. So much of what we do in the library world and design world comes down to interaction, extension of human feeling, offering something useful and ease of use. This is a perfect example of those things coming together perfectly.

 

Types of Blogs, originally uploaded by cambodia4kidsorg.

Don’t miss the Technorati report on the State of the Blogosphere.

http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/who-are-the-bloggers

Bloggers are not a homogenous group, but they are an educated and affluent one: three out of four U.S. bloggers are college graduates, and 42% have attended graduate school. They skew male, and more than half have a household income over $75,000.

They are experienced: although it has only recently exploded into the mainstream, blogging is not a new phenomenon. Half of bloggers are on their second blog, and 59% have been blogging for more than two years.

The rest of the report is equally fascinating. Look how far we’ve come:

• Introduction
• Day 1: Who Are the Bloggers?
• Day 2: The What And Why of Blogging
• Day 3: The How of Blogging
• Day 4: Blogging For Profit
• Day 5: Brands Enter The Blogosphere

Don’t miss:

http://www.asaecenter.org/PublicationsResources/ANowDetail.cfm?ItemNumber=36272

One of the stumbling blocks for libraries when we talk about blogging is the fact that so many library blogs never get comments. This article – focused on associations – might be very useful for strategic planning for the library blog.

I especially like this one:

2. Open and easy. If you really want to build comments, you have to be open and make commenting easy. Limiting your blog content or commenting features to members also limits what you can achieve with your blog. A members-only strategy may be appropriate in some cases, but not if your goal is to engage a vocal audience. In fact, to truly be open, try setting up a blog with

• No login; 
• Easy to find comment links; 
• No captchas—those annoying things that make people spell out letters to prove they are human; 
• No moderation. (You can always be notified of new posts and moderate after the comments are posted.) The instant gratification a new commenter feels when they see their name and content post to your site is not to be underestimated.

As TTW readers may know, I write a lot about the power and potential of blogging in our profession. My dissertation “Modeling the Role of Blogging in Librarianship” examined the motivations of early adopting bibliobloggers while my work with ALA Library Technology reports offered the hows and whys for blogging libraries. I recently got a review copy of Library Blogging by Karen Coombs and Jason Griffey. I must say it fits the bill as a perfect “How to” guide for librarians  from two practitioners and bloggers that’s up to date and pretty darn inclusive.

The opening chapters give the lay of the blogging land and highlight what libraries have done with blogs. It’s a good overview and is rather timely with the examples shared. Because technology, including blog software and CMSs, moves so fast, it’s hard to capture anything in book form that seems current. The companion Web site helps this by including fresh new examples. Wordpress.com is explored at length (great for my purposes). I did find the coverage of Movable Type to be surprising, but maybe libraries are still using the platform?

After a detailed section exploring blog software and RSS at a most granular level, the final chapters of the book are the most important to me: what are the implications and uses for blogging?The authors offer some wonderful “thinking out loud” pieces to ponder. What does it mean to participate in “blog culture.” How do we follow the Blogger’s Code of Conduct? What policies and procedures enable successful blogs?

The last chapter is called “Future Possibilities.” The authors explore what we might do with free software such as Wordpress? In my mind, there’s no limit where our imaginations might take us with some of these tools. Coombs and Griffey key in on this with brief explorations and thoughts of newer blogging tools beyond just library examples to the realm of archives, collections and community.

If you are starting a blogging project in your library or teaching blogging, I’d recommend this one for sure as an up to date choice. I’ll be using it as a classroom resource in my teaching.

For more, visit http://libraryblogging.com/ and add the feed to keep up with additions to the examples used in the book.

Disclaimer: The authors used a snazzy screenshot of TTW visiting Australia in the book!

http://plainfieldlibrarydirector.blogspot.com/

The Parking Question

Excellent example of transparency in action as well as a well-written director’s blog.

http://plainfieldlibrarydirector.blogspot.com/

Another nice example of blogging library directors. Take a look, and don’t miss How many square feet does it take to make a functional public restroom which ends with this:

The draft of the building program will be posted here as it nears completion. In the meantime, you can help by submitting your idea here: http://plainfield.lib.il.us/contact/index.asp or jotting it down on a suggestion box slip at the library! It’s your library, so let us know what you want. What spaces/features would make your library experience better?

Nice piece at CopyBlogger called “I Don’t Care About You” at http://www.copyblogger.com/who-cares/

There ate insights here for those who write blog posts for their libraries and all of us who blog. Good stuff.

Egotistical Marketing

We’re an egotistical bunch, aren’t we?

We love to talk about ourselves. We want to tell people how wonderful we are and blather on about how much they need us.

We ramble uselessly about our innovative products and excellent services. We’re all about us.

Want a tip? They don’t care about us.

They care about themselves.

Let’s Talk About You

For content to be effective, it has to be about “you” (as in them), not “we” (as in your company). Most businesses get this wrong, and every sentence (or almost) begins with “we.”

“We do this. We offer that. We, we, we…” all the way home.

Touting your own qualities and greatness has its place, but it can also be a huge mistake.

Want to avoid it?

Flip that attitude 180 degrees. Direct all your attention at the prospect.

What’s the number one rule of engaging people in conversation?

Don’t talk at them; talk about them. People love to discuss themselves. They love hearing about themselves even more. They want to feel as if someone cares… someone who’s listening to and acknowledging them.

People want to hear you hearing them.

I’m always happy to hear from former students. I just got a nice email from Mick Jacobsen. TTW readers may remember him from his info about LibGuides. He’s moved on to some cool stuff:

Our first gaming event is taking place later today (spearheaded by me).  We have a Wii and PS2 for DDR.  So far nearly 50 kids of signed up, luckily we also have lots of board games so no riots.  We will have an adult gaming event in the near future and I am working with the senior centers to bring the Wii to them.

The website is rolling along.  I added a new rating system to our blogs, 1-10 stars.  I am hoping it will bring more interaction and ownership of the website to the patrons.  http://www.franklinparklibrary.org

I created a Summer Reading Blog http://www.franklinparklibrary.org/index.php?q=blog/12.   The patrons can submit books using a form I built which emails me the submission and permission to post it on our blog.  I also check out our hand written entries and contact individuals with interesting, different reviews of items.  All the patrons seem pleased to see their reviews of items on the website (especially the elderly who normally don’t look at computers).  Our comments on these items are also stronger than the average blog entry.  I am wondering if I should continue the blog past the Summer Reading and make it just a patron recommendation blog.  I am not sure if the authorship would be there, but it would be a fun experiment. 

I had an article written about one of my projects in the local newspaper.  I am using Google maps to “map” Franklin Park.  I created an image and description Historical map and a modern Places of Note map.  I am in the midst of working on a map of all the road construction taking place in Franklin Park.   I embed the maps on our website and try to get  people involved.  

http://www.franklinparklibrary.org/index.php?q=node/292 for the Places of Note map
http://www.franklinparklibrary.org/index.php?q=node/291 of the Historical map

I am in the midst of a “Splash Page” experiment.  I know many are anti splash pages, but I think they could really work for public libraries and I am conducting a study to see if my hypothesis is correct.  It is not pure science, but does lead to some great conclusions.  

So I emailed Mick and asked if I could publish his update on TTW and would he answer this question:

What’s helped you be most successful with these projects?

His response says a lot about organizational culture, that important sense of play, self-motivation and the wealth of info available online:

In no particular order:

1.  An innate desire to try new things (why else go in to Library Science but to try new cool stuff).

2.  Complete confidence that I have the support from my management (top to bottom) to try new things.  How many libraries would let a new graduate (graduated in January) the freedom that I am given?  I got to redesign, reorganize, rethink an entire website in Drupal and much, much more (I have not told you about very important but not sexy stuff I have implemented e.g. email notices for nearly overdue items, pc reservation, print release, etc.).  Most of the time they have no idea what I am doing, simply trusting that I am doing something beneficial for the library.  It has become a sort of joke, “What have you added this week, haha.”  And I say, well this cool thing called LibX or rating stars or a suggestion form or a summer reading blog or an online sign up for programs, or Google translate, etc.  

3.  The willingness to fail in trying new things (these projects are not necessarily successes as of yet…).  And many grand ideas have failed and been buried, but not forgotten.  

4.  The joy in reading blog after blog ferreting out great info and trying to turn them to library uses.  

5.  Making the time to research, play with, and eventually (or not) implement new ideas.  

6.  Being able to enthusiastically bounce crazy ideas of coworkers without having them get annoyed.   

7.  Not being bogged down by bureaucracy.  

Greetings from the new Wordpress for iPhone app.

Brian Kenney writes:

Have you heard of 23 Things, the self-guided program for learning about 2.0 web technology? It was developed by Helene Blowers a couple of years ago at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and since then has been adopted across the country by public and school libraries, districts, and even entire states. It consists of a number of “things,” or small exercises, that you do online to expand your knowledge of the 2.0 web and social networking, from blogs and podcasts to wikis and Twitter.

For a while now (and prodded by our Technology Editor, Kathy Ishizuka) I’ve realized it would be a great idea if all of us here at SLJ went through a “23 Things” like experience. After all, we are always writing about different 2.0 applications, shouldn’t we experience them as well? Walk the walk, talk the talk, and all of that…So I resolved that we’d do it this summer.

So that’s what we are going to do. But Iwe’re not going it alone; we’ve asked 2.0 guru, Dominican faculty member, and season trainer Michael Stephens to join us for the ride. Beginning Monday, July 21, Michael will author a blog here on SLJ.com that will lead us through the different exercises, offer guidance, answer questions, and even provide a little hand-holding. We’re calling it “All Together Now: A 2.0 Learning Experience.”

There’s no need to sign up–just show up. Again, we’ll begin on July 21 and wrap things up in early September. 

Hi Michael,We just posted an article, “100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of”  (No link love here – MS) I thought I’d bring it to your attention in case you think your readers would find it interesting. Either way, thanks for your time!

Fiona King

Dear Fiona – So glad I heard from you yet again, because I had saved a link to Stephen Francouer’s post “On Not Being Scammed:”

http://www.teachinglibrarian.org/weblog/2008/07/on-not-being-scammed.html

I hope Stephen doesn’t mind me shamelessly quoting his whole post – I just can’t help myself:

In the past month, I’ve received a couple of emails from “Fiona King” asking me to write about some library-related content on two different web sites that both focus on distance ed. I didn’t pay much attention to those email messages, the like of which I mostly receive from vendors hoping that I’ll mention their product on my blog (which, by the way, I never do).

I noticed that a few bloggers, though, had decided to post links to the blog posts that Fiona had suggested. Wondering who was behind the distance ed sites where those blog posts resided, I did a little investigating and discovered:

• neither site has any sort of “about us” or “who we are” content (first red flag)
• each site had a different person who registered it (learned this by doing a whois lookup)
• after googling the two people who registered the sites, learned that they are in business together and hope to get “fabulously rich” through SEO efforts and viral marketing of their blog network
• after searching the web for info on “Fiona King,” I came to the conclusion that she is the creation of the two bottomfeeders who created the distance ed sites

Although the content that “Fiona” asks us to link to is somewhat interesting, the methods that are being used to get us to link to it and the ulterior motives of the folks behind these emails is troubling at best. I have no interest in linking to their content just to help them “monetize” blogs under their control. They’ll have to find other ways to make money not involving me.

I had always felt a little weird about your emails before and now I know why. Please do not send me links again.

Sincerely,

Michael

Thanks Stephen for the insight into this “troubling” practice.

http://www.libraryforlife.org/blogs/lifeline/?p=5181

An inspired way to invite participation in the library blog! The folks at SJCPL are featuring library patron John D. Smith sharing how he uses the library. I heard that this will be the first of an ongoing series. Think about it: John tells family and friends he’s posted on the library blog and they take a look, etc. This could lead to more participation and maybe even folks asking to do guest posts!

Well done SJCPL!

Stephen Francouer writes about the usefulness of his library’s Reference Blog:

I am really pleased with the way that our library’s reference blog,Reference at Newman Library, has continued to thrive after being launched four years ago. We’ve now posted over 1300 messages (and hundreds of comments, too); our weekly average is about a dozen posts.

When we started the blog, it was intended to do away with the informal and haphazard systems we had to notify each other at the desk of technical problems and to alert each other to new resources and tools. We had been using:

• notes taped to the desk
• a printed reference manual in a 3-ring binder, which is now replaced by our password-protected reference wiki (screenshots)
• emails on internal listservs
• word-of-mouth (i.e., tell the person coming on after you at the desk what to watch out for)

With the blog, we made all that great content easy to publish, easy to share, and easy to find again later. Since most of my colleagues don’t like using feed readers to keep up with RSS feeds, I set up a system to forward every post to them via email as soon as the posts are published.

I’m pleased to see a discussion of this type of anecdotal evidence/support for using blogs and CMSs to improve productivity. This should definetely be part of the evaluation process. A click through reveals a survey on the blog itself: Where do you primarily read this blog’s posts? I agree with Stephen and the results of this small survey of the blog’s users – getting library on oard with RSS aggregators is an important and logical next step.

Ellen Druda, at Half Hollow Hills Community Library, writes:

A Love Supreme

Too much on this professor’s plate folks. I missed marking the five year anniversary of this blog on April 1st 2008. What an incredible time it’s been! These past 12 months were something and I’m so glad I’ve had the community we’ve built for support and inspiration. 

Last year at this time, I did remember and actually blogged about blogging at ALA TechSource too. Remember the Points of Unity? 

I’ll thank Blake for keeping TTW healthy and online. I’ll thank Kyle and Lee for contributing their time and viewpoints. And I’ll thank YOU –  for reading, responding and for sending me little snippets to share.

So pretend I remembered this on April 1.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/101655312

In the last three weeks, I’ve presented a special version of the Hyperlinked Library to groups of administrators and board members/trustees around northern Illinois. One question came up a few times:

Are there any library board members or trustees blogging?

Please comment if you know of one – AND maybe it’s time for someone in those groups to start! I know there are some rules/laws about what board members can say, etc.. but some tpe of bloging would be okay, wouldn’t it?

Marcus writes:

But something funny happened on the way to OJS: I became firmly convinced that the traditional journal model is antiquated for sharing research and knowledge among librarians.  A better course is to develop and nurture excellent blogs, with multimedia capabilities and guaranteed preservation of the postings. This could be an entirely new blog that starts from scratch, or an established journal that evolves into a blog. 

One of his arguments:

Peer review should be a post-publication process, rather than a pre-publication process that sometimes drags out for many months.  If physicists can post pre-prints that get discussions flowing quickly, why can’t librarians?

Read the whole post. I am particularly interested in this for two reasons: I’m on the tenure track and peer-review is important for me and much needed AND I’d like to see more and more opportunities for folks to get their ideas out there, get credit for them, receive feedback, and move forward.

Practitioners and students alike should be able to experience the value of the blogosphere and use it to expand their thinking.I know many great folks in the field are blogging and extending the conversation.I think  Librarians like Cliff Landis, Kathryn Greenhill, and Cindi Trainor who are actively pursuing scholarly endeavors and working to make their libraries better could certainly benefit from a peer-reviewed, blog-based community-focused “journal” environment to get credit for their work, etc. And it should count for those librarians on the tenure track even as the feedback rolls on.

Students too. I just read 15 papers from my Library 2.0 & Social Tech Class — top notch stuff approaching emerging technologies, foundational library practice and more. I’d certainly send many of them to Library Student Journal but I also wish for more channels for publication. 

Finally, as a recent editor of an issue of IRSQ, it amazes me how long it takes from a call for papers to the publication date. Another benefit then is rapid dissemination of content. Why wait months or years?