Public Libraries

Easiest and most useful application of a blog is for promoting the library and its collections.  Many blog sites today are free and easy to set up.  Blogs are also relatively easy to maintain.  Another benefit to blogs is that once a user subscribes, the information can be pushed at the user.  Since blogs are free, a library can have multiple blogs in order to highlight different areas of the collection such as science fiction/fantasy, mystery, non-fiction, or different areas of the library itself such as reference, children's, or young adult/teen.

  

Avon Film Fans

The Labyrinth Librarians

Birmingham Public Library

Internal Blogs

Blogs are also a great way to keep up to within a library organization.  It can be used in any number of aspects including to update staff announcements, to highlight successful programming, to report important issues such as alarm system testing or out of service technology, or to highlight specific staff for a job well done, among other things. 

Tredyffrin Staff Notes

MPLIC Resouce Guides

Professional Development

More and more librarians have blogs and post on them regularly.  It is a great way to share experiences and knowledge.  One of the most common uses of blogs by librarians is to review books they read.  But there are also a number out there with practical advice.

Strategic Librarian

Letters to a Young Librarian

Tips for Blogging

Overall, blogs are an excellent and easy tool for a library to use.  However, as with any tool, if it is not kept in working condition, they might as well not exist.  The biggest problem with blogs is that they are often not updated and maintained.  It is not necessary to update a blog everyday, but there should be some sort of schedule.  One post a month would certainly be enough for some libraries. Also, the more people contributing to the blog, the easier it is to update since the burden is not on one person.

• Look at what other blogs do well and incorporate some of those aspects into your own blog. 
• Include areas of basic information about the library on your blog including links to the library's website and handy information such hours, a link to the catalog, and contact information for the library.
• There are programs that will work with blogs to track statistical information and give you important feedback about how often the site is visited.
• Link to other blogs your library may have

Management 2.0 via blogs in school and academic libraries

While blogs are big in the library world at large, they are particularly popular in academic libraries. And those in the academic world are doing what they do best: studying and writing; the literature is full of articles examining blog usage in academic libraries.

For example:

• Hernández, Y., & Domínguez, N. (2010). Blogs as content management system for an information literacy program.
• Murray, D., & Bell, S. (2007). Exploring the faculty blogoverse: Where to start and what's in it for academic librarians.

What are your experiences with blogs in school or academic libraries?

Special issues school and academic libraries:

• Privacy (school)
• Academic community—already inclined toward reading and writing, will they follow another blog?
• Others?

Some general ways in which schools and libraries are using blogs in a management context:

• Enacting the academic library mission (furthering intellectual discourse)
• Marketing
• Internal communications and resource management
• Professional development

Enacting the Library Mission

Managers, more than other staff, have a great responsibility to the organization's mission. Blogs in the academic realm are particularly suited to the mission of academic libraries, where reading, critical thinking, writing and discourse are crucial activities. Blogs can help managers who are looking for creative, relevant ways of enacting their mission.

Library Babel Fish
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library-babel-fish
academic librarian blog hosted at higher ed website: networking across university, marketing for librarians among larger academy

Academic Librarian
http://blogs.princeton.edu/librarian/
Philosophy and Religion librarian writes about topics in these fields, and at large, at his personal blog

UThink blogs at University of Minnesota
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/uthink/
lots of conversations going on a once, library acting as a clearing house for them, networking across departments

Marketing School and Academic Libraries

Marketing is probably one of the most common uses of blogging in academic libraries. Blogs can be an easy (and free!) way to keep students, faculty, and other patrons up-to-date on the latest programs, collection additions, and library news.

Standford Library
https://www.stanford.edu/group/ic/cgi-bin/drupal2/
blog as simple website

Georgia State University Library
http://homer.gsu.edu/blogs/library/
news and upcoming events

Middler Books and More
http://phiferbooks.blogspot.com/
school librarian blog with book reviews

Internal Communication and Resource Management

As in other types of libraries, blogs can be a great tool for managing internal communications and resources. They are free, simple to create and maintain, and easily accessible to anyone who needs to see it.

Internal Communications
K-State Libraries Staff Bulletin
http://ksulib.typepad.com/bulletin/
central place to post meeting minutes

Barnardrefdesk
http://barnardrefdesk.blogspot.com/
keep everyone up to speed on library issues

Resource Management
Open Source Systems for Libraries
http://www.oss4lib.org/
Yale medical library guys' to track open source software developments for libraries

Professional Development in Academic Libraries

One of the major issues that managers are facing is how to keep staff current with professional development. Managers, and staff, who stay abreast of the topics in their fields have access to best practices and innovations, and they are better prepared to excel in their current and future positions.

Association of College and Research Libraries
http://www.acrlog.org/
"quintessential blog” on academic librarianship

Kept Up Academic Librarian
http://keptup.typepad.com/
aggregator of relevant news

Confessions of a Science Librarian
http://scienceblogs.com/confessions/
for people in specific departments, collaboration with others in the same field at other campuses

How do Special Libraries approach Library Management in the 2.0 world (Part 1)

In scouring the special libraries blogging world, I have identified three main uses for blogging that relate to the library management field. The first and foremost use is the idea of marketing the library through blogging. Connie Crosby, author of Effective Blogging for Libraries, writes that one of the most integral reasons for blogging development in libraries is the potential for the blog to market itself remotely at a substantial decrease in cost, which if done with a proper interface and marketing ideas increases visibility of not only the blog but the library.
In terms of blog interfaces, there is still much to be desired for design and usability. But I believe as time progresses, librarians will see the full potential of a blog, hopefully transforming these simple interfaces into websites that are clean and inviting like so many private blogs. The larger focus here however is the utilization of the blog to market the library as a whole and interestingly, each type of special libraries performs this function in a unique way that gives us an insight into the library and in part its constituents such as the University, Corporation or Government. Below are some examples of the varying array of special libraries and their marketing approaches: Barco Law Library, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Stanford Special Collection and University Archives Blog, Global Metrics International, Corporate Library, Library of Congress, Government Library, Cambridge University, Medical Library.

Strategic Planning and Vision (Part 2)

Going hand in hand with what we discussed earlier, marketing is a method of advertising the library which brings us to my second method, using the blog as a tool to advocate the libraries goals, accomplishments and vision. So in utilizing the blog effectively, the library not only markets itself but also helps to inform its constituents of recent developments, which helps demonstrate vision and creates a form of strategic planning. These goals vary by library type and also partly due to the library's mission as some focus on collection development, keeping up to date with legal information, business developments, etc. I have linked some entries below from Special Libraries that demonstrate the utilization of strategic planning in a blog: Law Library, Stanford Special Collections, GMI, LoC, Medical Library.
Another key reason I believe blogging is good for strategic planning is that not only does it keep the users satisfied in terms of library progress but if managed properly can serve as a tool for self diagnosis as it is highly visible because it is being constantly updated, which in turn can be used by the librarians to dictate where they are in terms of their goals and if they have accomplished what they have set out to do in their strategic plan and mission.

Professional Development and Communication (Part 3)

Abstractly, the use of the blog allows other libraries to use it as a site of reference for professional development. What I mean by this, is that a large amount of the followers for each of these library blogs are other institutions of the same type or in a few instances are librarians of other fields who are curious in what local libraries are doing. So for example if we take a look at Medical Library (now updated and changed) http://www.elhtlibraries.blogspot.com, we can see that they follow other medical libraries and vice versa. This not only helps keep libraries in constant communication but as mentioned prior it helps libraries stay on track of what is going in the professional development field.

Closing Comments(Part 4)

If you were to ask me, could I predict blogging to take root in libraries ten years ago, I would have said not a chance, people don't want to read so why would they read a libraries postings? Now its the exact opposite, the digital age has transformed the masses into users who want to be satisfied immediately, twitter, facebook, podcats, rss feeds, these are all tools that grant instant information. In order to meet those unyielding needs, librarians in all institutions, had to evolve in order to keep up with the digital age, blogging has helped all of these libraries in our presentation keep up with its users, coworkers and ameliorated the professional field through its ease of access and I believe it will be a tool of great success for librarians to master.