How to Craft a Blog Post

Here's another more general/less library-specific blogging resource that I stumbled across while trying to teach myself more about blogging: "How to Craft a Blog Post - 10 Crucial Points to Pause" by Darren Rowse.

Rowse writes that "too often as bloggers we 'PUNCH' out content as though we're in a race or under some kind of deadline…unfortunately the posts we write often reflect this."

Well, Darren, I was indeed under a deadline while writing my first two entries, and I admit that I waited until the last possible minute to do so, and I'm afraid that those posts do reflect that. Hopefully my future posts (starting with this one) will be better and of more interest to whoever might be reading them (probably no one).

Anyway, Rowse suggests that blogging should be "a more thoughtful process that is about crafting words and ideas - shaping posts into content that take readers on a journey." The remainder of his article is then divided into ten sections in which he outlines exactly how to do just that. The ten sections are:

1. Choosing a Topic
2. Crafting Your Post's Title
3. The Opening Line
4. Your 'point/s' (making your posts matter)
5. Call to Action
6. Adding Depth
7. Quality Control and Polishing of Posts
8. Timing of Publishing Your Post
9. Post Promotion
10. Conversation

I hope to apply these ten suggestions to my future blog posts, and I hope that my fellow class bloggers who may or may not be reading this post with find them useful as well.

What is all the fuss about Library 2.0?

As a very, very brief follow up to my previous post, here is the specific citation information for the article that I referenced in that post:

Murley, D. (2008). What is all the fuss about Library 2.0? Law Library Journal, 100(1), 197-204.

Blogging and Libraries

I have had very little experience with blogs prior to beginning this blog for this class, so I have been doing some reading and research into blogs and how they can be applied to and used in libraries.

One article that I read in addition to this week's readings was "What is all the Fuss about Library 2.0?" by Diane Murley, in which she discusses many emerging 2.0 technologies being used in libraries today, including blogs.

Murley defines blogs as webpages “with certain characteristics that make them ideal for posting content that will be updated frequently,” which certainly sounds like a necessity of a library to me. He continues to explain how a standard blog operates, noting that “new information appears at the top of the page, previous items are available via archives, and entries can be assigned to categories” (Murley 201).

However, the defining characteristic of a blog, according to Murley, is “the availability of a comments function, which you can use to allow readers to add comments to entries.” She points out that “discussions often develop in the comments area between the blog author and her readers, furthering the communication between librarian and patron,” but also cautions that any and all librarians who invite comments on their library blogs to “moderate or filter” the comments to keep spam from “rendering [them] useless” (Murley 202).

Despite this worry, Murley sees blogs as being a very useful addition to a library indeed, immediately noting that “blogs can supplement or replace print or e-mail newsletters, delivering information faster and avoiding e-mail filter problems.” She further suggests that libraries use a blog as “a way to let patrons know what is new at the library by posting information about new materials, library news, event announcements, policy changes, etc. Most libraries are already using flyers, newsletters, and table tents to publicize these things, but, with a blog, patrons can respond to posts and engage in a conversation with the library” (Murley 202).

I hope that my new experiences with blogging for this class will make me familiar and comfortable enough with blogging to one day be able to manage and contribute to a blog in whatever library I ultimately end up working at!

Philosophy of Technology

My philosophy of technology, as it applies to life in general and to libraries in particular, is that the technology itself is neutral: it is the users of technology who determine its ultimate value as they use it in ways that are both good and bad.

I think that the use of technology by libraries has been very good overall, and that the adoption of various new technologies by libraries over the course of the past fifty years or so has done a great deal to improve libraries and to help them meet their goal of better serving their users.

Some examples of technologies adopted by libraries in the second half o the Twentieth Century include the development of Machine Readable Cataloging (MARC) in the 1960s, the beginnings of computer networks and online services in the 1970s, the creation of Online Public Access Catalogs (OPACs) in the 1980s, and the birth of the World Wide Web in the 1990s.

Today in the Twenty-First Century, more new interesting and exciting technological advances are being made than ever before, and accordingly, librarians and all users of technology need to evaluate the neutral technology before deciding whether to adopt it or not, so that they will have a full understanding of it and how to best use it.

I believe that it is this understanding on the part of users that leads to neutral technology being used in good ways, and a lack of understanding that results in it being used in ways that are seen as bad.

I'm looking forward to enhancing my understanding of technology as a result of being in this class, and I hope to be able to share my understandings with others through this blog, so that we can all become good users of technology.