Wednesday, May 30, 2007

a little behind...

week 3 article comments...

The Scout article, made me question something, as to who should be writing on the blog. The article suggests that it should only be one person. Thinking about a small library, I could see that only one person would be writing, but in a small university with only one library, which services all areas, why not have a few staff members, possibly reference and administration writing on the blog. Having to channel all the information to one person takes away from authorship, if you decide to go that way, and if anyone ever has any answers, it takes away from the person who wrote the piece. Also, people go on vacation, so are you supposed to write about your Cancun adventure while in Cancun, or would you rather someone keep up on the information while at the library. Sharing the responsibility also would encourage staff to be knowledgeable of the technology and have their say in some things, which is not always bad. Accountability is always number 1, but having more than one person contribute to the library's information on the blog, I would think is not a bad thing.

The Catalyst Group Design “usability report” is quite interesting in how people in 2005 did not really know about blogs, even though they were techie web people. I wonder what would happen today if this study was done, not with web savvy people, but rather with random pool of participants, ranging from all ages. Would we get the same results?

The Ethical Blogger article is very interesting and very harsh on what a librarian can put on their blog, as the information has to be taken very seriously. I understand if you're writing for an organization, you do not write in rumors or half-based/fact information. However, if it's a casual blog, and they wish to comment on what they want, who really cares, some blogs are personal, be opinionated, etc, and I do not think they should be taken like reference questions, in their information.

The Fitcher article is really informative and basic, but a good starting point for a library to get some information on where, how, and what a blog could do for their library.

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