Why We Blog

Theresa Stoner almost gave up on blogging before she even started. Her library system, the Saint Joseph County Public Library (SJCPL), IN, offered comprehensive blog software training, but it didn’t inspire her to write much. An assistant branch head, Stoner had plenty to say, but her lack of HTML knowledge stymied her and made blogging a chore, not a joy. Happily, a software upgrade made blogging a simple matter of “typing into a box” and clicking “publish.” With her technological roadblock removed, Stoner found herself blogging at least once a week, sharing her views on best sellers and declaring Jim Dale “the P. Diddy of audiobooks.” Encouraged by positive feedback, Stoner now finds inspiration everywhere she looks in her library.

Stoner’s story is not unique. As blogging software has grown increasingly user-friendly, many libraries are employing blogs to make their web presence as inviting and interactive as their bricks-and-mortar counterpart. Libraries are reaping the rewards, too: well-written, frequently updated public blogs help librarians relate to their patrons, generate support for new building initiatives, and market programs, collections, and services. Internally, staff blogs can foster improved staffwide communication and camaraderie.

Before you download blogging software and start training staff on it, however, first consider why you will blog, the time commitment required, the scope of topics, whether or not to allow public comments, and how success will be measured. Brushing off any of these issues is not an option.

Terri Bennett, director of the Webster Public Library (WPL), NY, believes blogs have the power to break down the institutional wall between libraries and their community members. “In my view, the more human we look, the more we personalize our services, the more connected we will be to our patrons,” enthuses Bennett, whose library uses both internal and external blogs. Additionally, well-promoted blogs can help reach community members who might not think of the library first when faced with an information need. Judy Hohmann, former division manager for partnerships and communications at Hennepin County Library (HCL), MN, reports that “blogs were a great vehicle for us to ramp up the dialog and reach, in particular, the teen customer and then adults.” Reaching out to and having conversations with users through a medium they already know and enjoy send the message that you are aware of and participating in trends that matter to them.

Internal blogs, written by and for staff members, are especially useful for improved communication flow, particularly across larger departments staffed by a mix of full- and part-time workers. Adrienne Furness, the children’s and family services librarian at WPL, started an internal blog, called Discerning Meat Cleaver, in order to keep her department’s six members in one clear communication loop. In an interview with Pop Goes the Library’s Elizabeth Burns (popfurness.notlong.com), Furness notes that while she interacts in person with “everyone on the children’s staff every week, many other staff members can go months without even seeing each other...we use the blog to communicate about day-to-day things, to help us all keep informed about what we’re all up to and what needs doing.” Unlike the less effective emails and Post-it® notes Furness and her colleagues would leave for one another, blog posts cannot be lost or accidentally deleted. In addition, blogging eliminates the confusion that can result from second- or third-hand communications and offers the advantage of allowing department members to use the comments feature to discuss and resolve issues raised in blog posts. Ultimately, Discerning Meat Cleaver has led to a more effective flow of information, both up and down the hierarchy, in Furness’s department. Bennett declares the value of establishing an internal blog “a no-brainer. As I see it, my job is to make my [staff members’] jobs easier, so if this is the communication method they want to use, so be it.”

Discerning Meat Cleaver has not replaced email or in-person contact; rather, the blog complements other, well-established communication tools. Staff at HCL follow similar etiquette, says Hohmann, who mentions important blog rules of the road for her system, including “blogs don’t replace face-to-face and in-person communications, blog postings aren’t to be used in place of communications among particular workgroups, and [posts] are to be work related and will show the poster’s name.”

A blog is not a one-size-fits-all communications tool. Although running just one blog may streamline your library’s blogging operations, there is a significant trend toward launching a variety of blogs, each tailored to the needs and interests of a specific segment of users. The homepage of the Ann Arbor District Library (AADL), MI, web site displays an ever-changing array of posts from the library’s many bloggers on topics from teen literature and electronic games to updates from the director and local news items. The site is presented as one blog, but because the library’s bloggers use so many tags to categorize their posts, Eli Neiburger, IT manager, says that there are “effectively over 100” blogs there. Saint Joseph’s web site hosts general interest and gaming blogs, as well as one spotlighting the audiovisual collections. The Camden County Library System, NJ, where I work, has a teen blog, an internal blog for the six-member Youth Services Department at my branch, and a director’s blog is in the works, with a launch planned for spring.

The bloggers interviewed for this article report spending, on average, ten to 30 minutes each workday—less than half a lunch break!—on blogging. HCL’s Hohmann notes that library management views their more than 50 internal and external blogs as essential communication tools. “It was worth the investment of time to create blogs for improved and more efficient staff and customer dialog,” she says. Blogging is built into the communications plans for every internal and external project at the library, so the number of active bloggers at Hennepin is always changing to keep up.

Done responsibly, blogging is not a time sink. Instead, it can be a creative, easy way to reach tech-savvy community members who might not otherwise consider using the library. The best way to ensure productive blogging on staff time is through training. Make sure staffers know how to use the software effectively and encourage them to read widely in the biblioblogosphere so that they can gain both inspiration and a sense of how to strike a professional, approachable tone in their posts. SJCPL’s Marianne Kruppa, web developer librarian, uses a blogging FAQ and step-by-step handout on WordPress blog software in her training sessions with staff. Both the FAQ and the handout are available on the internal staff wiki, so interested staff members can self-train if they prefer. Kruppa reports that 20 percent of the library’s staff are trained on the software. “We have a core set of ten who post regularly, but other names often pop up” on the library’s three public blogs, she reports.

The topics covered in library blogs are often the same as those addressed during in-person or email interactions: new materials, library programs and events, online resources, and library services. You may want to define the scope of your blog’s coverage by drafting a mission statement, even if only for training purposes.

The SJCPL blog is mandated to “keep our patrons informed and amused with information about new releases in the library, local and online resources, as well as news about upcoming library and community programs and events.” At the West Long Branch Public Library, NJ, Director David Lisa chose as a guiding principle, “we can bring the news about the library to you on your schedule.” It’s a powerful message for both staff and patrons with packed lives.

“Anything goes” at Ann Arbor, according to Neiburger. “There are several assigned beats, but many bloggers also just post about what they find interesting in the collection or in our community.” As for a mission statement, Neiburger says that “the goals are to keep fresh content coming and to make sure that we have a post about it almost any time something from the collection is in the news, or related to a community event, while inviting our patrons to play a more active role in the discussions of the library.” Such goals define the blogs’ audiences quite broadly, which gives bloggers the flexibility they need to appeal to as many different types of readers as possible.

Ultimately, the only limits on what your blog covers are those imposed by law and your bloggers’ imaginations. Encourage them to sample the wide variety of public library blogs by browsing through the list hosted by Amanda Etches-Johnson at her Blogging Libraries Wiki (blogwiki.notlong.com). As of this writing, the list included over 400 links to currently active public library blogs. A randomly viewed sample of a handful of these blogs revealed posts on an author event for children, a teen poetry slam, an event to collect expired or unwanted medications, a display of Grammy Award–winning CDs, and a groundbreaking ceremony for a new branch.

Whether or not to allow comments from blog readers has long been the hot-button issue among library bloggers. The idea of relinquishing control, of inviting two-way conversations between the library and the public, can be very threatening, but lively dialog between library bloggers and the public can be one measure of a blog’s success.

There is no right or wrong on this—the Waterboro Public Library, ME, does not permit comments. Its blog is maintained by volunteer Molly Williams, who says she prefers not “to spend the time I devote to the library web site cleaning up spam and junk” that can target open-comment blogs. On the other hand, AADL revels in the over 10,000 comments its blogs have received since July 2005. It’s worth noting that all blog software now offers comment-by-comment vetting, so you can accept or reject comments on an individual basis.

Quantifying readership is another way to measure a blog’s ability to draw a dedicated audience. WordPress software includes a statistics counter, and there are a variety of free and for-pay statistics counting web sites that offer bloggers a bit of code to paste into a blog. Two of the most popular are the fee-charging Nedstat (www.nedstat.com) and the free SiteTracker (www.sitetracker.com).

All library bloggers with whom we spoke, from novice to veteran, could not say enough about the value that blogs have added to their web sites. HCL’s Hohmann enthuses that blogs are “a great investment of technology and time to engage with our customers directly” as well as “an opportunity to test out how to augment employee communications.”

John Blyberg, formerly at AADL and now at Darien Library, CT, says he was most impressed by “the amount and quality of the content the staff produces” at Ann Arbor. West Long Branch’s Lisa is especially proud that his “staff is reveling in their ability to come up with innovative ideas and do immediate grass-roots promotion on the web site.”

In every case, and regardless of the library’s choice of software, commenting policies, or level of staff participation, blogging has empowered librarians to talk to their users more directly and to develop further the user-library relationship that is so fundamental to our institutions’ ability to thrive.