readings - week 4

Most people will probably find it amusing that I've had an imac for almost 4 years with Safari 2.0 and I had no idea what RSS was until I took this course. I am pleasantly surprised after reading this week's articles and looking up RSS for Macs that my computer has a built in RSS aggregator with up to date news from the Washington Post and the New York Times just a click away. My husband is going to be so happy that he can get sports scores so easily. Which actually leads into my main thoughts on RSS that I took from the readings - RSS is great for information that has a greater value the more current it is. Most of the research I do requires currency, but equally important and sometimes more so is relevance and authority. RSS might assist with routine searches for information like information on a law firm's client (as long as the client isn't Walmart or some other huge company that has 30 news items a day published about it). However, librarians and information professionals usually get unique research requests or are looking for specific information which requires complicated searches that aren't possible using RSS. I can also see how database vendors like Factiva won't provide an RSS feed because they may not own the original copyright and therefore need to ensure that they control access to their database and because they already have enough subscibers especially for business and corporate information. Government websites on the other hand should provide an RSS feed because it is important that the public gets information on changes to laws, regulations and procedures quickly and in any manner possible that allows for wide dissemination.

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.

multi-author blogs

Even though it may seem less coherent, I think that a multi-authored blog could work if each of the authors made sure to post or sign off in their name so readers knew who was posting. You could have different authors who specialized in different genres of literature or library departments (ie. history, science, or business) posting on a regular basis. This way the library might be seen as a connected community. Library users who only use the library's fiction collection, for instance, might become interested in the library's local history collection by reading a post on the library blog. It would also mean that the library could share the maintenance of the blog between staff more equitably. Librarians could each take on one week a month to post on a topic within their specialty. To make the blog more coherent the postings could all centre on a particular topic such as "Black History" month. This might give library users some idea of the breadth and richness of the library's resources.

week 3 - readings

This week's readings fell into three categories for me: marketing a blog, creating a usable blog and ethical blogs. I found the articles on marketing and creating usable blogs interesting and helpful. If I were trying to ensure that the messages in my blog were seen by a specific audience and was more usable by that audience, then I would definitely consider customizing my "about me" page, adding a picture of myself and ensuring that the titles of my entries were sufficiently on point and conveyed the content of the posts as suggested in the article found at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html. I did find, however that it was assumed that I was publishing a blog to promote something and myself as opposed to just reflecting or recording thoughts on significant events or interests.

Rebecca Blood's article (http://www.rebeccablood.net/handbook/excerpts/weblog_ethics.html) and the article from the library journal (http://libraryjournal.com/article/CA515805.html) concerned me just a little. I agree that librarian's who are publishing blogs with the library's name on it or who promote their blogs by stating that they are expert researchers on a particular topic should be careful not to disclose confidential information, breach copyright or publish information which is not verified. However, I think it's a bit much to impose a "code of ethics" on bloggers who just want to express an opinion. Freedom of expression is an important right. If works are intended for a scholarly community then obviously certain standards need to be met, but sometimes people need a place to rant maybe even at each other. I don't quote the editorial section of a newspaper when looking for facts and the same goes for blog. In addition, not everyone has a university education. I don't think these people are unethical for posting blogs without proper citation. ( I guess that's my rant)

New Generation Library Blogs

I think that public libraries could have a blog book group where library users can go to discuss certain books and the issues raised in them. The library would have to keep sufficient copies of books on hand, but it could improve circulation of some old classics as well as new releases. A service that delivers books to the disabled and those who cannot easily get to the library could be combined with the blog. You could also use blogs in the way that the Western Spring site which was a case study for week 2 did. You could link the catalogue to a blog for each book that allows people to make comments. Amazon and Chapters already do this.

Do Blog providers back-up and save Blogs?

One thing that I didn't find in the readings or maybe I missed was whether blog providers like blogger.com save all the blogs on some secure server somewhere. The only reason I thought of this was that my husband was considering using a blog to record family memories that disappear so quickly and would be fun to look back on at sometime. For example, my son had a good/guy bad guy phase which involved making us tell him whether every person, animal or even thing was a good guy or bad guy in books we read to him. This dominated our lives for months. He doesn't do it anymore and in two years I'm sure that we'll forget he ever did that. If we recorded these things which my husband tries to in a paper notebook then we'd have a record. A blog would be cleaner and easier and grandparents might get a kick out of it and post a comment or two. However, if blogger disappears so would the blog and all of our memories. Besides creating our own blog which I have no time to do, there must be some blog providers who scurely save information that bloggers don't want to lose.

Case studies week 2

Of the case studies we were asked to look at this week, I liked the Georgia State Universty blog best. I found it easy to navigate and figure out and I appreciated that I could see a list of all the blogs on my sceen when the page opened instead of having to scroll through it. I also found the content most interesting. I like the idea of the blog being a medium for debate and a forum for the interaction of ideas. Of course this is the perfect blog for a University. The Jefferson Library and the AADL blogs were designed more as conveyers of news. What kind of comment would you get abut the announcement of an event. These blogs had more links in them. These blogs are designed to meet the needs of the communities they serve. Using a blog to announce events makes sense as it is always current easy to update unlike a website. The Western Spring blog was interesting in that it serves as a means of gathering information and research as well as a means of presenting that research. The blog invites users to comment on a property that they see perhaps by relating a story from their past which involves the property. Ultimately the blog, like website works if the community needs are met. The community itself has some say in the content of the blog and can therefore ensure that the information found in the blog meets the individual members needs.

week 2- readings

Rebecca Blood's articles on the history of blogging were very thought provoking though they presented somewhat of an idealistic idea of communication and self realization through blog. Being a part-time student allows me to appreciate University education for something that can get lost when working and living a busy life - forced reflection and critical thinking on topics that ordinarily you wouldn't make time to think about. Rebecca Blood's picture of blogging includes the ability to maintain academic exchanges with people who are interested in a topic. In that sense blogging provides a forum which is similar to a Univerity grad club. Blood goes on to observe that there is now such an abundance of blogs that no one can find a blog on a particular topic and provide the interactive postings which made blogs such a great means of debate and exchange of ideas. I think that's a shame. At the same time, the internet used to be used primarily by higher educated white men and if the cost of greater access comes at the expense of quality blog exchanges then I'm prepared to accept that. Based on the history of blogging outlined n Blood's articles, blogging seems to evolve as does the use of the internet as more and more people gain access and less techncal skills are required. Perhaps the purpose of blogs will change now that there are so many of them.

The readings which explained blogging jargon and tools were informative. I'm a big fan of the user-friendy-templated blogger.com. It makes sense for someone like me who just wants to enter the content and doesn't want to "personalize" the "face."

Week 1 Readings

One of the themes that caught my interest in the readings for this week was group dynamics and behaviour using social software. I am currently working in an organization where we use Lotus Notes and Sametime which is, just as its name suggests, a sametime communication feature that allows "chat" (like ms messenger). We also use depositories for information that we want to share with each other in the research group. Being new to the organization, I've had to work out what the conventions are for using the various social software. Sametime leaves it up to members of the organization to choose who is in the list of contacts always displayed when you open the tool. As the article "Are you ready for social software?" and "Social software and the politics of groups" point out, social software like Sametime allows new groups to form that are not based on those imposed by an organization. People naturally reach out and share infomation with people who help you do your job. It is so important to learn the proper conventions for social software and people have figured out some interesting ways of communicating effectively. For instance, researchers looking for another researcher to take on a project communicate by mass e-mail, but the information you need to be able to delete or open the message is in the subject line. Sametime is also effective for caucusing during teleconferences. I'm sure that I'm not using the social software at my organization to its full potential and am fascinated by how communication itself is evolving and shaping how we socialize.

week 1 - September 6, 2006

Hello all. I'm Katharine Thompson. I kept a blog for MLIS 515 over a year ago and never kept it up. I know what a blog is, but I don't know what RSS or wikis are. I'm looking forward to learning about these things and other types of social software that could make my job easier and more fun.