Maybe we can blame Tom cruise for the current state of technology VS book. with the War Of The Worlds remake we have an example of a brilliant work of writing that is recent culture was dragged from is binding and slathered onto the shiny silver screen to usher in a grand lack lustre appearence, followed by grumbling about the current cost of popcorn at the local theatre. I for one am happy to blame Tom Cruise for the current state of technological development when it comes to libraries, but alas the problem seems to be a bit more involved than the questionable sanity of a pop culture icon.
Myself, having been created equal parts tea tottering old lady, with an affinity for amusing stories and dusty old piles of books, combined with World of War Craft playing, comic book reading, are you really calling me again at 2am because you want me to fix your computer problems? Techno geek. I just might be able to earn the highbred super power glasses of a librarian, that gives people the ability to view the perspective of both these very different personalities, and if super powered glasses are what get me to the coffee pot in the morning, I'll currently take either perspective for the day with a double double.
Our tech end topic for learning today in class was blogs. Strange... could the reason I'm writing one now have anything to do with an assignment? Well I digress and admit to never having jumped much on the blog band wagon. So that begs the question: Who uses blogs anyway and for what? Blogs are best for simple topics, and updates on news you want to get out to an online community. Examples that have successfully taken off in the blogging community are things like simple DIY projects, recipes, sports, artist or business project development, community news or events, or oddly enough things liked by white people or people with suicidal cats that appear to do such hilarious things to their owner every day, they have some clever story about some poor cat that is trying desperately to tell their owner "Stop Blogging about me your the reason I tried to jump out the window today."
Crazy cat folk and white people aside. People can a do use blogs for entertainment, news, and basic interaction in an online community. Is it a good concept? Yes. Do I like it? Potentially. Is it useful? As much as you make it. Do I use it? not really. So that's a lot of Q and A. Let's break it down. I like things that are updated regularly and provide me with new content. Since a lot of any content online is barren of updates, inconsistent in postings, and in general outdated. I tend to find I dislike anything online with a date stamp of more then 6 months ago outside of a search engine, or database on a cumulative subject.
The concept of a blog is not unlike a church group bulletin board. Since we all know how long little old ladies have been using church bulletin boards we know the concept of a blog is a good one but it's only useful if updated. Even if the gingerbread recipe is still up on the church board in April it isn't doing me any good when I want to make carrot cake for Easter. If I don't have something current I'll use something other than a blog to get my info. Even if that means (online) going to Google or (in Church) asking grumpy old Mr. Sam for his famous Carrot Cake recipe. The key to a blog being useful is keeping it current, otherwise their are easier ways to search and get the info you need online. Therefore a blog is only as useful as you make it and keep it to be. Being that I find blogs are in general hard to gain and keep interest with, the vast majority of the ones I come across are outdated, it seems the internet has moved to more streamlined micro blogging trends of twitter, facebook and the weird, wild and often disturbing vlogging world of youtube.
So the big questions we get to is are blogs still relevant? Absolutely! To the right market. Which brings me to Libraries. If your target market is READERS then guess what you have and actual chance at making your blog a success. Why? Because they will actually read more than a 2 sentence twitter feed. Heck a lot of them probably can't see the use of a 2 sentence twitter feed unless you have managed to put a lot of punch into it. The goal is keeping your information current, summarized, organized and either useful or interesting ideally both. The other key to success is not letting your blog stand alone. Blogs today are viewed as the "older clunker" part of the social network and usually need the help of either a youtube or facebook page as well as the use of your main web site to generate interest. Links that drive people from your websites and social media accounts will generate the traffic needed to get your information out there.
Blogs have the benefit of being organized usable and adaptable tools for libraries to top it all off they are cheap to free. That being said just because you get the seeds for free doesn't mean you don't have to put in the work of watering the garden. If you want your blog to bloom it takes the same attention and demand not unlike watering a garden every day. You have to weed out bad things like spam and trolls, and water it with interesting and useful updates, fertilize it with popular trends in culture, only then can you harvest the interest of it and use it as a draw to get people participating in what the library has to offer. Which is likely to goal of a library blog. Don't expect flowers on the first day, and if you do get a popular blog expect rotten tomatoes from your fan base if you don't update it.
Any type of library, from private, to school, to public, to special interest can benefit from using a blog to update its target users on current topics and events, generate feedback on usability of its facility, and attract new users and interest. These are lofty goals for a free online service. Being that it is true and there is no such thing as a free lunch be prepared to have to grow your lunch and prepare it from scratch before you can expect to see the rewards. Also keep in mind that food goes bad so expect that even after you get things off the ground the work of updating and growing your user ship is as unending online for your library as it is offline.
-Ebony
Myself, having been created equal parts tea tottering old lady, with an affinity for amusing stories and dusty old piles of books, combined with World of War Craft playing, comic book reading, are you really calling me again at 2am because you want me to fix your computer problems? Techno geek. I just might be able to earn the highbred super power glasses of a librarian, that gives people the ability to view the perspective of both these very different personalities, and if super powered glasses are what get me to the coffee pot in the morning, I'll currently take either perspective for the day with a double double.
Our tech end topic for learning today in class was blogs. Strange... could the reason I'm writing one now have anything to do with an assignment? Well I digress and admit to never having jumped much on the blog band wagon. So that begs the question: Who uses blogs anyway and for what? Blogs are best for simple topics, and updates on news you want to get out to an online community. Examples that have successfully taken off in the blogging community are things like simple DIY projects, recipes, sports, artist or business project development, community news or events, or oddly enough things liked by white people or people with suicidal cats that appear to do such hilarious things to their owner every day, they have some clever story about some poor cat that is trying desperately to tell their owner "Stop Blogging about me your the reason I tried to jump out the window today."
Crazy cat folk and white people aside. People can a do use blogs for entertainment, news, and basic interaction in an online community. Is it a good concept? Yes. Do I like it? Potentially. Is it useful? As much as you make it. Do I use it? not really. So that's a lot of Q and A. Let's break it down. I like things that are updated regularly and provide me with new content. Since a lot of any content online is barren of updates, inconsistent in postings, and in general outdated. I tend to find I dislike anything online with a date stamp of more then 6 months ago outside of a search engine, or database on a cumulative subject.
The concept of a blog is not unlike a church group bulletin board. Since we all know how long little old ladies have been using church bulletin boards we know the concept of a blog is a good one but it's only useful if updated. Even if the gingerbread recipe is still up on the church board in April it isn't doing me any good when I want to make carrot cake for Easter. If I don't have something current I'll use something other than a blog to get my info. Even if that means (online) going to Google or (in Church) asking grumpy old Mr. Sam for his famous Carrot Cake recipe. The key to a blog being useful is keeping it current, otherwise their are easier ways to search and get the info you need online. Therefore a blog is only as useful as you make it and keep it to be. Being that I find blogs are in general hard to gain and keep interest with, the vast majority of the ones I come across are outdated, it seems the internet has moved to more streamlined micro blogging trends of twitter, facebook and the weird, wild and often disturbing vlogging world of youtube.
So the big questions we get to is are blogs still relevant? Absolutely! To the right market. Which brings me to Libraries. If your target market is READERS then guess what you have and actual chance at making your blog a success. Why? Because they will actually read more than a 2 sentence twitter feed. Heck a lot of them probably can't see the use of a 2 sentence twitter feed unless you have managed to put a lot of punch into it. The goal is keeping your information current, summarized, organized and either useful or interesting ideally both. The other key to success is not letting your blog stand alone. Blogs today are viewed as the "older clunker" part of the social network and usually need the help of either a youtube or facebook page as well as the use of your main web site to generate interest. Links that drive people from your websites and social media accounts will generate the traffic needed to get your information out there.
Blogs have the benefit of being organized usable and adaptable tools for libraries to top it all off they are cheap to free. That being said just because you get the seeds for free doesn't mean you don't have to put in the work of watering the garden. If you want your blog to bloom it takes the same attention and demand not unlike watering a garden every day. You have to weed out bad things like spam and trolls, and water it with interesting and useful updates, fertilize it with popular trends in culture, only then can you harvest the interest of it and use it as a draw to get people participating in what the library has to offer. Which is likely to goal of a library blog. Don't expect flowers on the first day, and if you do get a popular blog expect rotten tomatoes from your fan base if you don't update it.
Any type of library, from private, to school, to public, to special interest can benefit from using a blog to update its target users on current topics and events, generate feedback on usability of its facility, and attract new users and interest. These are lofty goals for a free online service. Being that it is true and there is no such thing as a free lunch be prepared to have to grow your lunch and prepare it from scratch before you can expect to see the rewards. Also keep in mind that food goes bad so expect that even after you get things off the ground the work of updating and growing your user ship is as unending online for your library as it is offline.
-Ebony
