Weblogs and Libraries

Berenika Webster (School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand)

Journal of Documentation

ISSN: 0022-0418

Article publication date: 1 October 2005

310

Keywords

Citation

Webster, B. (2005), "Weblogs and Libraries", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 61 No. 5, pp. 676-677. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410510625886

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2005, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Weblogs and blogging have been around for a few years now. Even though the first open access software became available in 1999, blogging came into our collective consciousness in early 2003 through newspaper reports on the writing of the Baghdad Blogger – an ordinary person's account of life and struggle in war‐torn Baghdad.

Whilst there is no one accepted definition of what a blog is or how many active blogs there are around (the estimates range from 2 to 4 million), there can be no doubt that the phenomenon of blogging is gaining momentum. Some claim that they are revolutionising the internet, and clearly this is not a development that libraries can ignore. Clyde's book explores this issue; she discusses weblogs as sources of professional information for librarians, new information resources for library users and as tools that can be used to promote library services and communicate with its users.

The author begins by providing the reader with an overview of the blogging phenomenon (definitions, history, typology of blogs and characteristics of bloggers). She also describes the more recent phenomenon of moblogging (blogging using mobile technology) and the use of real simple syndication[1] (RSS) in disseminating weblog content. Chapter 2 discusses weblogs as sources of information, including the very important aspect of evaluation (a handy checklist is provided) and a short list of “worthwhile” blogs. Chapter 3 describes strategies and tools for finding weblogs – (general search engines, specialist weblog search engines, general and targeted weblog directories, weblog meta sites, and listings on weblog software sites and weblogs themselves). From Chapter 4 onwards, the book concentrates on weblogs and libraries: Chapter 4 considers weblogs in the field of library and information science; Chapter 5 provides an overview of weblogs created by libraries (based on the author's research carried out in the autumn of 2003); Chapters 6 and 7 discuss issues around the creation (including software and hosting options) and management of library weblogs (including an overview of a 16‐step planning process which should guide decisions about creating, funding and maintaining library weblogs). Chapter 8 provided the reader with an extensive list of resources on a range of aspects of blogs and blogging.

The book is very well written – devoid of jargon and logically structured – and can be enjoyed by those who are new to the world of blogging as well as those with more experience of weblogs and their technology. It is of special interest to library and information professionals as it provides description (though very little evaluation) of numerous blogs dedicated to professional matters. It is unclear, however, what criteria were used for featuring individual weblogs in the book (for instance Sullivan's Scissors and Glue but not Dempsey's excellent weblog on libraries, services and networks). One of the strongest features of this book are extensive lists of resources about blogs and blogging (also available on the author's website at: www.hi.is/ ∼ anne/weblogs.html)[2].

Personally, I found the survey of library weblogs (Chapter 5) of most interest. Even though the state of the art picture is already a bit dated (October 2003), a lot of interesting information on why libraries establish weblogs, what types of libraries do so and what is the quality of their offerings is on offer here. Clyde's investigation confirmed findings of other studies relating to the motivation for creating weblogs. Providing news and information to library users and linking to internet resources were the most frequently cited uses of weblogs. On the other hand, only half of the libraries provided links to their websites or catalogues; a third included the library's street address or allowed for interactive communication; and only a handful advertised their opening hours. If one of the benefits of maintaining weblogs is marketing and promotion of library services and open communication with their users, it is indeed surprising that more weblogs are not designed to handle theses features. Interestingly, blogs which allow feedback function report very low take‐up of that service. There is also little evidence that libraries are adopting blogging as a way of managing internal communication and information exchange. This raises questions on whether blogging will indeed become a useful tool in libraries' attempt to promote their services and communicate with their users, whether libraries which decide to maintain blogs have clear understanding of how blogs can be used to their best, what type of information they should include and how to ensure returned visits to their blogs. Indeed, I was hoping for Clyde's book to provide the reader with more ideas of how blogs can benefit libraries and their users.

Public and academic libraries in the USA are most likely to have a weblog and very few were found by Clyde in other countries (Canada and UK) or sectors. Clyde found no examples of library blogs in such countries as Australia, New Zealand, France or Germany. My, very unscientific[3], survey of the New Zealand library community discovered one library blog (maintained by science subject librarians in an academic library and created after Clyde's study), a range of blog‐type websites (all from a university library) and an interest in creating a library blog (from one public library). One idea of using blogs by libraries was in trials of new electronic resources where a library provides an announcement and a link to the resource and library users post feedback visible to everyone and built upon.

Clyde's book should be of interest to all who want to find out about blogging, especially these in the library community. It provides information on the history and development of the blogging phenomena, provides examples of blogs on library‐related topics, reports on a survey of library weblogs and lists options available for creating weblogs and strategies for maintaining library weblogs and is, to date, the only comprehensive source of information on weblogs in libraries.

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