Weblogs and RSS: Applications for Libraries

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Weblogs and RSSApplications for Libraries

• Chad F. Boeninger
• Joint Meeting of
• Cleveland Chapter SLA and NORASIST
• March 22, 2005

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What is a Blog?

• Also called a Weblog
• Initially a weblog was a log of ones daily
  Internet travels
• Blogs became popular as online journals
• Now blogs are used for a variety of purposes

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Common Blog Characteristics

• Frequently updated
• Posts appear in reverse-chronological order
• New content appears at the top
• Often theme or topic oriented
• Politics http//blog.johnkerry.com/
• Library Related http//librarystuff.net/
• Personal Websites http//boeninger.com/
• Many allow comments
• Sense of community

4
Library News Pages

• Excellent mechanism for promoting library news
• New acquisitions or databases
• New services or projects
• Communicate timely news
• System outages
• Access issues
• Old OU News Page

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Problems With Static Pages

• Can often slow to update
• May be controlled by one person, such as the web
  master/manager
• Usually require extensive knowledge of HTML code
• Must have FTP access to the web server
• May require each author to have special software

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Why Use Blogs in Libraries?

• Allow many people to create and publish content
• Lighten the load of the web master
• Update library news page more quickly and
  frequently
• Reduce the need for additional software
• Require little knowledge of HTML for the average
  author
• Readers can subscribe to your blog

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A Few Software Options

• Blogger
• Radio Userland
• Movable Type
• WordPress

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Bloggerhttp//www.blogger.com/

• Pros
• Free and entirely web-based
• Blogging in a matter of minutes
• Highly Customizable with CSS or default templates
• An excellent way to see if the shoe fits

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Blogger

• Cons
• Can be really slow
• Not as customizable as other options
• Lack of control over server settings
• Free version has banner at the top of page
• No category archives

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Example with Blogger

• http//boeninger.blogspot.com/

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Radio Userlandhttp//radio.userland.com/

• Pros
• Desktop application that is easy to use
• Good for blogs with one author
• FTP to your web account
• Categories
• Built-in RSS aggregator
• Decent amount of documentation
• Thirty day trial

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Radio Userland

• Cons
• Secure FTP is not available
• Only one person can blog (with one license)
• Can only blog from one computer
• Templates may be difficult to customize
• Costs 40.00 for one license
• Comment features lag behind others

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Example With Radio

• http//home.earthlink.net/cfboeninger/

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Movable Typehttp//www.movabletype.org

• Pros
• Entirely web-based
• Can have multiple authors and blogs (with
  license)
• Can have multiple categories
• Support for paying bloggers
• Strong user community
• Very popular blogging tool
• Lots of plugins to play with
• With Type Key, less comment spam

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Movable Type

• Cons
• Can be quirky to install
• Requires lots of Perl modules
• Default installation uses a flat database file
• Can be slower to publish
• License is not as generous as other options
• Educational version available (for libraries)
  http//movabletype.org/get_movable_type_education.
  shtml

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Example with Movable Type

• http//132.235.45.163/mtblog/

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WordPresshttp//www.wordpress.org

• Pros
• The price is right, its open source
• Fairly decent user support forum
• Quite a few plugins to play with
• Very active development community
• Entirely web-based
• Should install easily on most servers
• Pages update very quickly

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WordPress

• Cons
• There is no real manual
• Support forums can be a little difficult to use
  at times
• Knowledge of CSS required to customize look
• Some knowledge of PHP and MySQL might be
  necessary to use more advanced features
• Fairly prone to comment spam
• Upgrades can be intimidating

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OU Library Blogs

• Ohio University Libraries News Blog
• http//www.library.ohiou.edu/newsblog/
• Business Blog
• http//www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/businessblog
  /
• Reference Blog
• http//www.library.ohiou.edu/refblog/

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Issues and Questions

• Should we allow comments or not?
• Who should be given accounts to post?
• How long should material remain available on the
  blogs?
• How can blogs be used for internal communication?
• How should we promote RSS?
• Can we have access rights to web server/ support
  from systems?

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Additional Library Blogs

• OhioLINK News http//olc7.ohiolink.edu/whatsnew/
• Georgia State University http//www.library.gsu.e
  du/news/
• Northwestern University http//www.library.northw
  estern.edu/news/
• Blogwithoutalibrary.net
• http//www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links/

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Questions??

• Feel free to contact me at boeninge_at_ohio.edu

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RSS Resources

• http//boeninger.blogspot.com/2005/03/i.html