Ann Arbor DPL Launches Interactive Blog Site
-- Library Journal, 8/1/2005
MI's Ann Arbor District Public Library is agog with blogs: the library July 5 launched its new website featuring seven different blogs. "We wanted our web site to be interactive with the public, and chose blogs as the major form of communication," said Director Josie Parker. "The major point is to make the library transparent." Blogging software powers the library news on the homepage. Staff written audio, video, and book blogs alert patrons to new material. Parker herself has a director's blog to speak directly to patrons. There is even a catalog blog; simultaneous with launching the new site the library migrated to Innovative Interfaces for their ILS and are using a blog to record users experiences—and help debug the system. "We expect the blogs to come and go over time," Parker says.
These blogs aren't sleeping—they are generating plenty of responses from the community ("What would really be nifty is if we could just keep a list of authors whose work we wish to read, and be automatically notified when new books by that author are ordered. With an offer to put us on the reserve list for the new books.") Parker says that the response exceeded their expectations, noting that over 7000 people have registered to use the site in less than three weeks. "They are even being used so that the public can talk with each other. The library is the public forum."
