i began by showing the NSUBA Library Blog, a blog for northeastern state university's broken arrow library (that i learned about via linda summers' poster session at last week's OK-ACRL). wordpress + images of the library and people in the library + brief posts that educate readers about the library's offerings = a smart library blog. i mentioned the magic of comments, the importance of tags, and the possibilities of group blogs.
then i temporarily moved away from libraries and talked about blogs across USF. i talked about father privett's blog, USF 2028, and encouraged more people to comment on it. i mentioned the USF journalism blog, an online forum to bring together past and present USF journalism students to discuss the morphing landscape of the beast we call journalism. i mentioned what a pleasure it is to read the blogs of my colleagues and friends - michael robertson and andrew goodwin. i think i turned to the librarians and said something like, "i don't know if you all want to know more about what your colleagues think and do but i get a real kick out of keeping up with michael and andrew through their blogs." i said this because a) it's true and b) i wanted them to imagine the ways that a gleeson group blog could be good not only for USF students and faculty but also, and i think more importantly, for USF librarians.
then i returned to the library, to get graphic, a past gleeson library book display that i have used countless times to illustrate the concept of harnessing collective intelligence. it was a treat to talk about a library book display to an audience that included the two librarians who designed it - kathy woo and debbie benrubi. i concluded the talk by saying that a display like get graphic requires real work, real time, and real resources. blogging about it, however, is sort of easy. snap some digital photographs of the display, snag some of the words used in the display's handouts, and include some hyperlinks to display-related library resources, and viola: a blog post.
excellent refreshments and conversations followed. thank you gleeson library.
5 comments:
Reading my blog is a little like a visit to lolsecretz.com.
Thank you for the advocacy and encouragement! I’m definitely on a steep learning curve when it comes to blog authoring.
I’m happy to report that my coworkers want to keep the NSUBA Library Blog going after it is no longer classified as my class project. Three of them have even agreed to serve as coauthors – despite a lack of familiarity with blog authorship. I’m excited about the potential transformation that will likely occur once the blog becomes a collaborative effort.
One other piece of fun news is that the NSUBA Library Blog has, in the past couple of weeks, inspired the creation of two internal communication blogs: one here at our satellite library and one for university wide access services.
Dr. Silver,
I hope you don't mind that I address someone other than yourself in this YOUR comment field, but I feel that I must:
Dr. Robertson,
I agree with the comment about your blog completely. I just laughed through the first few posts - grateful to realize that I'm not the only one with a three-cup-a-day addiction (despite the intermittent effort to cleanse), AND a cholesterol-inspired prescription to Zocor (despite a relatively valiant effort to adhere to a healthy regime of diet and exercise).
Thanks so much for coming to our town hall and bringing your enthusiasm for blogging into the library. We all enjoyed your presentation as well as your willingness to help get the conversation going on how the library can use blogging as a tool for collaborative expression. I can feel the ideas and energy flow building already!!
Linda Summers! If it's flaws, faults and foibles one is looking for, my blog is the West Coast distributor.
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