UM Library Offers Free Blogs

When University of Minnesota (UM) librarian Shane Nackenrud showed its library's new blog system to a faculty member in the philosophy department, he got his first indication that the program might be popular. "He was so impressed," Nackenrud recalled. "He said, 'You're going to have 100,000 users!'"

With the April launch of UThink, a program under the library's auspices to offer free blogs to the university community, Minnesota is among the first university libraries to become the center for blogging. Blogging has become popular on campuses nationwide but not necessarily sponsored by the academic library.

UM asserts that blogging is key to the library's mission, from collecting "campus history" to facilitating academic discourse. "We are not unique in using blogs in an academic environment, but we are unique in that we saw that the university libraries could lead the effort," said Nackenrud (see blog. lib.umn.edu/about.html).

UM officials think blogs may transform the academic enterprise—and they want the library to be part of that. Already, Nackenrud said, professors have said they'll use the blogs for specific classes to encourage discussion and debate.

"We also are excited about the potential that blogs hold to create communities of interest on campus," he added. "We can [combine] blogs based on department, college, major, research interest, or specific classes and bring people together who maybe would never have met if not for the system."

Copyright and all related rights to blog content will be owned by the author; a mechanism allows authors to license the content of their blogs through a Creative Commons license.

Other details are still developing—such as library support. "It really depends on how many users we have and the demands from those users," Nackenrud said. In its infancy, the system is supported by two people, Nackenrud and a programmer. That could grow if demand increases.

As for free speech, Nackenrud said the library was careful not to create any new policies, even for those blogs with views that may offend. "There is no policy on campus that trumps the First Amendment as far as I know," he explained.