Thoughts on case studies - week 3

Of this weeks case studies I preferred those which had a search feature and grouped the blogs into categories which could be browsed such as Lamson Library and Virginia Commonwealth Library Suggestion Box. This way one could browse through all posts on a topic or do a pinpoint search depending on your information need.

The blogs for Garfield Library Lounge and St Joseph Library Game Blog seemed the least organized of the blogs and information was hard to find without using a search feature.

I found that the Darian Library Blog looked like an ad and made me think I was on a commercial site. Even the pictures looked like products. In “Net Rage: A Study of Blogs and Usability,” the study observed that internet users were afraid of spam when posting on a blog. I suspected that I was going to get unsolicited e-mail by subscribing to feeds for the listed blogs.

The Mabry online blogs and Virginia Commonwealth Library Suggestion Box were the most innovative and imaginative in their use of the blog. Although, I thought that the VCL blog was less of a suggestion box than an “ask the library” blog. It was interesting that the VCL blog let patrons determine the postings as opposed to the library.