Is It Time To Get Blogging?

In a few short years, web logging software has changed the way many people look at the web. Web logs (blogs) allow content to be posted to a web site with the click of a mouse. Because content can be posted quickly and easily, blogs have also become one of the best ways to stay current with the cutting edge of many fields. Blogs have allowed those with an interest in a specific area—such as libraries and technology—to develop a community and share knowledge and experience. But for librarians, blogs aren't only about professional or personal growth.

They are also a tool to do what we've always done: collect, categorize, and make information accessible. After all, adding a blog to your library's sites is free and easy. It is also a quick way for you and your staff to communicate information to your public and, if you choose, to provide a forum for your public to join the discussion.

Generally, blogs are either personal or informational. Personal blogs focus mainly on the author's life and typically take the form of an online diary. Personal blogs have many fine uses—such as sharing your vacation photos with the grandkids in California—but they are usually of limited interest. Here we'll look closely at informational blogs.

At their most elemental, blogs represent a new way to add content to a web site. The blogging tools are flexible enough to allow large parts of any web site to be maintained via the blog interface. Most blogging software is now as easy to use as a word processor, with the programming and HTML formatting done for you. Updating a web page can be as easy as writing a quick letter, allowing a standard web page to become a personal web publishing wizard. The standard web form widgets enable the blogger to control text size and fonts and even facilitate hyperlinks by simply highlighting words and clicking a button.

The tools also include a large array of templates, or skins, that make it easy to set up the look and feel of a blog within minutes. With names like "Colorful Bubbles," "Cowboy," and "Hair + Nails," it's easy to find a design that will fit. For more on creating blogs, see the sidebar "Getting Started."

Blogs typically consist of many entries on a single page. Entries usually include a title and date and are sometimes categorized by topic. They may include an original short piece but are often quotations from or comments on other articles, usually in the established media. Typically they include a link to the story or a pointer to another web site, and they may or may not be signed. The standard blog format, which is normally arranged chronologically, makes it easy for people to scan quickly through items. Here's an example from [Blake Carver's blog] LISNews.com.

What Would Dewey Do? Libraries Grapple with Internet

Story Posted by Blake on Monday December 02 2002, @ 08:14AM—Read 145 times.

A NY Times story on balancing community standards against the First Amendment rights of patrons who use the computers to view X-rated material. They say the challenge to strike a balance is made more difficult by the large percentage of children using computers.

"For me, this has been one of the most challenging issues of my career," said Toni Garvey, the city librarian, who oversees policy in the 13 branches of the Phoenix system. "We all want to do the right thing, but it's not clear what the right thing is." Post Your Comments on this story!

The entry is accompanied by an icon representing the posting's main subject (a sieve for filering). "Blake" is hyperlinked, so that readers can easily e-mail me. "A NY Times story" is hyperlinked to the article at the Times's site and "Post Your Comments on this story" is linked to a form that can be anonymous. This is a key element for most blogs: the opportunity for discussion. For example, a comment on this story criticized it for not mentioning the Patriot Act, arguing that in attempting to end privacy rights in this country, the Patriot Act was a far greater challenge for librarians.

If the story is part of a series, there will usually be links to earlier reports. Stories may remain on the first page of lisnews.com for a day or so—until new stories push it out of the way. The nearly 6000 stories on lisnews.com can be browsed by topics (legal issues, Presidential libraries, Harry Potter) or searched by a variety of criteria.

At the same time, a blog can be so much more that just a means of adding a news item. It has the potential to be a bit of CNN, the New York Times Op-ed page, and a personal diary all rolled into one.

Blogs provide like-minded people with an endless stream of timely stories and links. This helps bring information, news, and web sites to readers in a quick and efficient way. Slashdot, probably the most popular blog on the web today, covers "News for nerds, stuff that matters." With topics like Bugs, Compaq, Star Wars, Spam, and Anime, the nerd in all of us can find a story of interest and join in some great discussions.

Andrew Sullivan runs a prolific one-person show dedicated to politics. This blog provides a strong editorial perspective, with a series of up-to-the-minute news items contextualized by Sullivan. While he is in complete control of the blog—readers can't comment on the story—Sullivan often discusses the responses he receives and does publish letters. There are links to his essays by major topics: homosexuality, faith, politics, culture, people, and war. Sullivan even hosts a book club, where visitors read and discuss—by e-mail—a new book each month. These blogs share one thing: they filter out the noise of the web, drawing back readers with new, interesting, and useful content every day.

Many of the best blogs are kept up-to-date by writers who collaborate on one site, sharing stories and sites from around the web. Metafilter is a community blog—open to all—whose 17,000-plus members can post whatever they find interesting. The conversation is often political and largely progressive. Other sites, like LISNews and Slashdot, follow a semi-open model, where a team of editors screen open submissions and make the final decision on what gets posted. With no one person editing or controlling what appears on the site, style guides are usually created to help the editors be consistent. Diversity among both contributors and editors fosters broad content and instigates free exchange.

All blogs are not created equal, and while what makes a good blog can be subjective, the best and most popular blogs are both well written and timely. For a blog to stand out from its peers—and make readers return—it must have a strong voice. After all, a consistent and clear voice, in any medium, is needed to engage readers. It was John McPhee's unique voice that made a book about rocks—the Pulitzer Prize–winning Basin and Range—so compelling. The same holds true for good blogs: a well-written blog can make even the dullest topics (like MARC tagging) interesting.

Second, a blog needs to present fresh content. Whether readers return once a week or daily, they are looking for new and interesting postings. After a few disappointing visits, readers are likely to delete a stale blog from their lists of favorites.

Readers can get a lot from surfing blogs regularly. They find new, different, unfiltered, diverse, and alternative information from sometimes previously unknown sources. The commentary hasn't been dumbed down to appeal to the widest possible audience. Rather, it is often in an authoritative voice that anticipates a knowledgeable reader.

Following a blog, you can make new connections in your field. Instead of reading just what you find on your own, you read what those with similar interests have found as well. As you check a blog daily or weekly you grow to appreciate the perspectives and ideas presented by the specific community that has grown around it. At LISNews our community includes people interested in a wide variety of issues that surround librarianship. But many members expand our focus with stories on topics at the edges of the discipline, like young adult games.

Blogs also create community by providing space for readers to contribute. Each blog can have an attached message board that allows anyone to respond to a posting. This helps bring the readers into a story, and as the story is shared and commented on, it changes. A story on the Patriot Act and libraries, for example, might elicit a comment attacking liberal librarians for trying to undermine the government. A comment like this is known as a troll—an attempt, often successful, to start a heated exchange. Readers' responses allow conversation, debate, and a social network to grow. This works to move the control of what you read from one central perspective to a more decentralized model, an important way blogs are distinguishing themselves from traditional media outlets.

Blogs move the control of information from a shrinking group of large companies to a diverse group of disconnected people. While blogs are not for reporting unbiased and original news and information, they do represent a step in a new direction. Newspapers, journals, and TV news have long been considered the most respected and trusted outlets for information. They have been developed over time and are proven to be effective. Lacking editorial staffs and fact checkers, blogs work differently. They rely on peer review, which happens in real time by the readers. Credibility, authority, and accountability take the form of feedback and linking. The credibility of a blog is made clear by site traffic, content, and links to the site.

Bloggers don't answer to shareholders or boards. They don't worry about attracting advertisers or growing market penetration. Blogs can run smaller, grass-roots stories that never show up in the more mainstream press. The inspiration for what you read later in the New York Times or The Chronicle of Higher Education can sometimes begin as a local news item, picked up by bloggers.

The blog's role is to get the link to the story up quickly, to add depth by pointing to similar stories, to connect the subject matter to larger issues, and to open discussion. Blogs can be, and often are, biased. In fact, the opinion in them is part of their appeal. However, usually the bias is quite clear.

Blogs can also provide an online memory—one that may not always be appreciated. A Wired story highlighted Michael Moore's recent web essay, posted on his site, in which he claimed that this year's elections would be known as Payback Tuesday, predicting the end of Republican control. After the elections, the entry vanished from Moore's page. It was resurrected by bloggers.

Adding a blog to your library's web site can add currency and freshness. It can also encourage patrons to return. At its best, a blog can transform your site into a dynamic learning community where everyone shares knowledge.

The UK's Gateshead Library has a blog with topics ranging from the top ten albums of the 1980s to Spider Man to the value of XreferPlus, the online reference collection. The site allows visitors to discuss the topics. By both providing and gathering information, the site becomes more valuable, uniquely tailored for the Gateshead public.

The Waterboro Public Library, ME, has run a prolific blog with content added daily. Topics include book news, author interviews, stories about libraries around the world, and information about the collection. "We're a little library," says Ruth Blake, librarian. "This helps make people aware that we're here." The library, which serves a population of 7000 and is located in a two-room schoolhouse, has a building project as its next initiative. "We'll definitely be using the blog to keep the public abreast of that," Blake says.

The Wilton Library Association, CT, posts to its web log less frequently but more broadly. In addition to library and book news (ten most popular titles in November, the Man Booker Prize announcement), the blog includes links the public will find valuable (a web site comparing nursing homes).

Libraries can serve diverse groups of users with blogs. Imagine academic staff members sharing news in their subject area, such as links to book reviews, or notices of conferences, or links to papers posted on the web. In a public library, specific departments, like young adult services, could establish blogs on their web pages to communicate with—and encourage discussion among—their users. Whether you have a staff of 80 subject specialists or you are a solo librarian in a school or special library, you and your users can learn from the information you choose to post. The future of libraries and blogging is just beginning.