The Blogging Explosion Libraries and Weblogs

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The Blogging ExplosionLibraries and Weblogs
Internet Librarian
Monterey, CA

• Darlene Fichter
• darlene.fichter_at_usask.ca
• University of Saskatchewan

November 4, 2003
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Overview

• What are blogs?
• Blog dissection
• Emergent information
• Finding blogs and blog content
• 10 ways to use blogs

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What is it?

• Blog / Weblog is
• A web page containing brief entries arranged
  chronologically
• Can be like
• A journal or diary
• Whats New page
• Interesting links page

To me, the blog concept is about three things
Frequency, Brevity, and Personality. Evan
Williams (creator of Blogger)
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Terminology

• Blogger person who maintains a blog
• Blogging the act of creating a blog
• Blogosphere - biosphere, media ecosystem
• Blogrolling moving from blog to blog
• Blogrolodex a listing of other blogs
• Blogorrhea hundreds of posts per day about
  anything
• Blawgs, Klogs

Coined by William Quick
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A peek at the past

• NCSAs Whats New page June 1993
• Netscapes Whats New 1993-95
• Librarians' Site du Jour Jenny Levine, 1995
• Dave Winer 1996
• Cam World 1997

Created and coded by hand Simple chronological
lists
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Librarians Site du Jour

• November 30, 1995
• You've used their publication manual, now visit
  their web site. Yes the American Psychological
  Association has launched PsychNET, with lots of
  good stuff for non-APA members
• http//www.jennyscybrary.com/1995/november.html

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Blogs today

• Range from
• the simple to the sophisticated
• Few features to chalk full of add-ons and little
  wizards
• Interesting and useful to mundane and completely
  irrelevant

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Blogging explosion

• 2000-2003
• Tools that made it easy to publish
• No need to know HTML
• No need to know FTP
• Add / edit content anywhere, anytime
• Dozens of features dynamic, quick and easy to
  develop
• Millions?? worldwide

Can you guess what South American country is a
hotbed for blogs?
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In the limelight

• Lots of media hype
• Google bought Blogger
• Tripod, the Web publishing unit of Terra Lycos
• AOL offering blogging tools

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Dissecting a weblog

• beSpacific.com
• Accurate, focused law and technology news
• www.bespacific.com

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Blog post or entry
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Headlines
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Topics
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Permanent linking to a part of a page!
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Date and/or time
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Archives
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Blogroll
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Daily email digest
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RSS Feeds
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Other features

• Time stamp
• Comments
• Draft mode
• Off line editing
• Spellchecking
• Timed release

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Blogging add-ons

• MyMediaList
• manage book, music lists
• AudioBlogger AudBlog
• phone and leave audio clips
• Bloglet
• set up a email subscribers option
• Blogarithm
• blogs that changed each day
• Blogrolling
• Bookmarklet to add links

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Pop open the hood
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3. Post and publish
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Feature rich blogs

• Powered by PHP, perl or some other scripting
  language and back-end database
• Two examples
• Movable Type
• pMachine

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Pluses

• Timely
• Get to the point
• Quick to skim
• Human filter
• Contextualized
• Whats Hot
• www.daypop.com

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Minuses

• ROT
• Redundant
• All posting the same stuff
• Obsolete
• Links expire
• Best before date!
• Trivia
• my cat coughed up a fluff ball
• Misinformation
• Rigor of validating information (rumor) varies
  greatly
• Bias

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Resource for emergent information

• Source for emergent information
• Many times daily
• Often before it hits the newsstands
• e.g.
• Viruses and hacks Slashdot
• Biz News Jeremy Allaires
• Talks about the fact he is leaving Macromedia
• Nothing official on Macromedia site where it says
  hes CTO

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Searching blogs

• Google indexes many
• Rise of Google bombs a brilliant gag by Adam
  Mathes who called his friend a talentless hack
• Directories
• Blogwise geographic categorical
• Search Engines
• Blogstreet
• Blogdex (MIT)

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Choosing a blogging solution

• Lots of options
• Dive in and try a few for free
• Blogger, Onclave,Web Crimson

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Types of blogs

• Solo
• Community blogs
• Slashdot news for nerds
• LISNews.com

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Hosted locallyor remotely

• Hosted
• Antville
• Blogger
• LiveJournal
• TypePad
• Local Server
• PMachine
• Movable Type
• Bloxsom

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Client solutions

• Clients
• FogCreeks CityDesk, Windows
• http//www.fogcreek.com/CityDesk/
• Eastgates Tinderbox, Macintosh
• http//www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/

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Just a few of the factors

• Types of blog
• Features and functions
• Server platform
• Unix or Windows or MAC
• IT help
• Scripting languages
• Security and privacy

Blogging Software for Intranet Applications.
ONLINE, January 2003
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10 ways to use blogs

• 1. News
• Share information
• Recommend internet sites tools
• Waterboro Public Library
• Urbana Free Library has a blog called
  Construction News

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Promote it!

• 2. Marketing
• Promote library events and programs
• Let visitors subscribe via email
• Distribute headlines (RSS)
• Gateshead Library

My Pick Announce movies, link to movie
trailers, reviews
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Get interactive

• 3. Online books discussions
• Let readers post reviews and comments
• Roselle Public Librarys Blogger Book Club
• http//bloggerbookclub.blogspot.com/

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Staff development

• 4. Staff development
• Fact sheets on new electronic resources
• Tips and tricks

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Knowledge sharing

• 5. Share knowledge Guerilla KM
• Employee blogs
• Self forming communities
• Story telling and context
• Best practices
• Committee or a project
• Presentation Blogging for Knowledge Exchange

Competitive intelligence blogs
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Solve IT bottleneck

• 6. Database for Web site resources
• Post recommended sites with annotations to your
  web site in browsable topics
• Have a search of links
• Have a whats new in web site links

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Professionally

• 7. Professional / personal development
• Reflective nature, adds focus
• 8. Résumé
• Professional blog
• Write about your interests and what you find
  interesting
• David Little

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Solve email overload

• 9. Project Tracking and Management
• IT teams can use it for bug tracking
• Document a more complicated software install that
  will have to repeated by other staff
• Enable comments and questions feature

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Be a leader

• 10. Community information
• Collect and syndicate local city news and
  events or university or college happenings
• Be everywhere.
• Stark County Law Library Blawg

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Library related blogs

• Gary Price The ResourceShelf
• Jenny Levine - Shifted Librarian
• Jessamyn West - librarian.net
• Stephen Cohen Librarystuff.net

The power and reach for blogs --search
librarian and library in Google
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Blogging and libraries

• Lots of opportunities
• Easy to publish
• Inexpensive (free)
• Multiple contributors
• Lighten web maintenance workload

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Finding out more

• Weblogs Compendium
• www.lights.com/weblogs/
• Articles
• Blogging Your Life Away. Online, May, 2001
• Blogging Software for Intranet Applications.
  Online, January 2003
• Next issue blogs for marketing libraries in
  Marketing Library Services

Employee Blogs - Harvard Business Review (HBR) -
case study by Halley Suitt titled A Blogger in
Their Midst September 2003
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Food for thought

• A tech-savvy employee has something to say about
  everything at surgical glove manufacturer
  Lancaster-Webb.
• When she raved on-line about an older style of
  gloves, sales unexpectedly shot up. And when she
  posted damaging information about a potential
  customer's business practices, the deal
  collapsed.
• Is "Glove Girl" a priceless marketing weapon or a
  grave security risk?

Employee Blogs - Harvard Business Review (HBR) -
A Blogger in Their Midst September 2003
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Thank you!

• Darlene Fichter
• darlene.fichter_at_usask.ca
• University of Saskatchewan Library

List of Library Blogs www.libdex.com/weblogs/