Choosing a Library Blog to Follow

For Week #3  second assignment I selected “The 'M' Word - Marketing Libraries” blog. This blog is about marketing tips and trends for libraries and non-profits.  I browse through a few library blogs but most of the blogs that I read were about new found technology being used by libraries or about what is going on at a particular library or events. I also read a few that used the blog more as their personal librarian journal. I felt that if I want to follow a blog it has to have more content, more about the works that a librarian or a library is doing. I hoped to find a blog that provides new ideas for library’s and librarians and maybe find brainstorming posts that I can follow and make comments. I want to learn what is going on differently in the library world that is really innovative, creative and inspiring.   Personally I would like to know more about what other libraries around the world are doing  not limit myself to what is going on here at home in the U.S.A. and that is what attracted me to this blog. 

This blog has two collaborating authors Nancy Dowd and Kathy Dempsey. Both authors are available for speaking and consulting. Their expertise is on marketing and finding ways for libraries to make that connection with their community.   For me personally making that connection is important.  Their post “ Take the Library to the People” totally inspired me to want to subscribe to this blog. They talk about libraries built were travelers are.  Libraries at an airport in Amsterdam were travelers can enjoy   books, videos, movies, music, art, and more in over 30 languages, and is meant to entertain and enlighten people about Dutch culture while they're waiting for flights in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, considered one of the world's busiest airports. Their post covers many areas of librarianship from the biblioburro in South America to gift ideas for library lovers and promoting libraries with T-shirts that say “Libraries are My Candy Store”.

I think that the main characteristic found in a successful library blog, aside to having a appealing and attractive appearance. Having a blog that has great functionality most importantly the library blog should allow for your readers to be able to interact with you.  The first thing that blogger should know before starting a blog is “What is your blog about” who is your audience and what is your goal? The content for me is the most important, establishing goals and objectives for your blog.  Allowing for content to be always fresh, with new topics to discuss and it is important to maintain the blog at least update weekly but the if possible setting up a calendar to follow for the updates would be even better.

Finally, A library blog should have more than one contributing author, and should be able to incite intelligent communication.  A successful library blog should provide a positive view on the library and be able to feature topics of interest to patrons, including book reviews, articles of interest, new services, future programs and even  include pictures taken of the library, its people, events and even videos on feature programs, resource topics anything that will expose the library and serve to advertise the library and its services. 

Learning To Work With Wikis

Ever wonder how Wikis work?  How can they serve libraries? Library Technology Reports “Wikis”  Part 1: Wikis & Libraries, July –August 2006. Wikis addresses these questions and more. I found it to be a  good article to read if you have never created a wiki or participated in adding or editing wikis. In truth, I always wondered how I could be able to add or edit one.  Through this course, and after reading this article I have learned that there are many reasons to engage in creating or being part of the collaborative team that works in creating and maintaining a wiki page.  The word Wiki comes from “Quick” in Hawaiian. The meaning of Wiki for the web interface is more about how easy you access and collaborate with it online. The article makes a case for Wiki on how it can benefit librarians. It offers librarian’s different scenarios to consider for its use.  

The article provides sites where you can start a wiki within minutes.  You can also consider an open source option for installing the software into your library server (of course, please get approval from your administration since there may be someone in staff responsible like a webpage manager). I liked the many options for the use of a wiki presented in this article and as a future librarian they seemed useful. For example: a library may want to consider listing resources available at their library; consider also using a wiki as a subject guide that can be used by both librarians and patrons, they can also use it to provide an overview about the library programs and services and even about the library’s history. 

In my view the best idea is as a training resource, librarians could work together collaboratively to create a research best practice outline or share with other librarians their many resources on the wiki . So, there are many possible uses for a wiki. Many University libraries and schools are considering using wikis as teaching resource site, they have links to their course curriculum, is also a great site for students to create their academic portfolio and in this same way University libraries are using MediaWiki as there preferred wiki webpage to provide students with links to articles, materials and other source information of importance for students.  

Several important points mentioned to consider before creating a wiki were:

·         Have specific goals and objectives to achieve with the wiki

·         Ask the question “what is the goal of this wiki?

·         Who will be collaborating in this wiki?

·         Appoint a wiki monitor

One last best practice advice mentioned is to be proactive with monitoring the changes made to your wiki. Now, what are you waiting for be proactive and start one! I know I will.

From my Traveling Desk

To say that I am an expert at this blog activity would be a lie. To this day, I am still working on how to better my blog image. I am still discovering how to make my page look appealing to the eye and attractive to anyone that comes across it. I am still figuring out how I get my page to be view by others and most importantly I am still learning about social media and how I can make it to my advantage or even better how I can use it as a librarian to provide information about traveling and what I learn from my visits about  culture, language, history, cuisine, literature, education, population, geography, arts, books...there is so much to learn, to share and to enjoy with others.

The Rise on Social Media

  

As I read some of the articles presented on Web 2.0 I realize that the rise on the many Social Media has now become just more than just main stream interest. The interest has gone beyond just finding ways for friends to connect with each other or simply communicate to others what you are doing. Social Media is now an important part of the business world.  Public and Private companies are interested on what social media has to offer. They see Facebook, Twitter and even You Tube as a mean to increase their business, increase their potential market and even influence how others perceive them. One of the things that I have learned through the discovery of blogs is that you do not have to have a journalism degree or be in the media spot light to get some attention. But you do have to have a reason to write a blog and one that will captivate a group of people for it to go mainstream. Reports such as the one written by Stuart Eliott describing how social media has played in an important role in the lives  of consumer  provide readers like myself proof how the internet and then of course social media sites have influence American’s  in their use of the internet. What I mean is that through social media more people are spending more time online to visit retail websites that  are advertise through a social media site. They are also discovering through Social Media what is going on in the world and finding websites to read more on the different subjects that are presented to them through their favorite social media site.

I cannot say more but the report is not only convincing. I am one of those people that have been lured to see other websites and even make some consumer choices because of articles read in social media sites or simply through suggestions made through others.   It is also interesting to know that Blogger is one of the social media sites that is increasing right behind Facebook in the report.  Stuart Elliots article “ Report Details Rise of Social Media” is a good one to read and would recommend other  articles such as Computers in Libraries: Innovative Services for Sustainable Libraries which discusses the emergences of Web 2.0  and Library 2.0 and how this revolution has impacted libraries but most important  what are  the current trends in library collections.

Week 2 (B) Assignment - Tag Clouds

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Tag clouds are not new forms of tags but they are to me since I did not know what their were until now, I had never created one. They serve as presentation techniques that are inserted as an explanation to web resources . Tag clouds are defined as visualization of word frequency. Cloud tags are just fun visual presentation of of words that can be shaped and sized with different fonts and colors.  These kind of tags can be found in advertisements, store displays, book covers, calendars and many other kinds of displays. I see them as colorful distractions placed for you to read and wonder.  It is definitely fun to create. I can imagine placing this kind of tags on posters promoting book events at the library using words that describe the different themes, topics or even titles.  In an attempt to experiment on the different possibilities I created two of these tag clouds to share on this blog. They were easy to create, fun, and gratifying to the eye.  In order to be able to use them on my blog I saved them as picture on my picture file and then transferred them to my blog. 

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Learning more on the use of Tags and Meta Tags

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of reading Shannon’s blog on Tags and Meta Tags so I decided to look into it and get my blog page with its own description in hopes that in the future, I will get people interested in my blog. Although this blog will be used for this class, I plan to expand on it and hope to make it a permanent blog where I can write about my traveling experiences and shared with others as a librarian what I learned on each trip. Hopefully I will be able to share the history, food, culture, language, books, music art in a fun, interesting and professional way for everyone to enjoy.

More on about Tags

 I knew nothing about tags until I took this course and as I was preparing myself to follow the instructions on how to develop the tags for my blog, I discovered the following. I was amaze at the different tags and their description. There is a title tag, description meta tag, keywords meta tag, robots meta tag, and charset meta tag. Each of these tags have a specific function some are obsolete but it is interesting to learn from each one. These are all webmaster tools and unless you have created your own web page or have some programming experience, you may have missed out on the use of Tags. 

  

The Title Tag - are not meta tag, the title tag serves to identify each individual pages content and link to other websites.

The Description Meta Tag – It tells the search engine what your page or site is about and it also helps to get people to visit your site.

The Keywords Meta Tag – This tag is practically obsolete but for information purposes there is one search engine that still uses it “Bing” and it is for the purpose of detecting spam. I read that it is best not to use it at all.

Robots Meta Tag – Is considered one of the most important tags. It lets your specify that a particular page should not be indexed by a search engine and also if you do or do not want links on the page followed.

The Charset Tag – All sites in the U.S. must validate charset, that is the UTF-8 tag in order to deliver HTML using English characters.

A very important markup format is rich snippets. Rich Snippets are the descriptions that appear under every search result; they are designed to give users a sense of what on the page and is relevancy to their query. 

Week 2: Reflecting on the Social Networking

Social networking is seen differently by adults, young adults, marketing experts, etc. Young Adults enjoy Facebook as a form entertainment and keeping in touch with friends. Marketing experts or business owners find social networking as a online source for selling their products and gaining new clients.  As an Adult belonging to a generation where social networking took place at a church, family gatherings, schools, parties, libraries etc. For me social networking has since expanded its definition but also its possibilities. People now find themselves social networking all the time. They can now social network from their computers, cell  phones and  in person.    I see social networking as a way to meet with others for entertainment, business, educational and personal discussion. When you social network you are gathering with more than one person over drinks, chat room, online social sites, parties, meetings, workshops, clubs, and other social gathering areas. The whole idea of social network is to gather and share with others ideas, information and experiences. I started using social networking sites specifically Facebook about 4 years ago after discovering its use after learning from an old friend from high school that many of my old high school friends were on Facebook. Since then not only have I been in contact with those old school friends but I have created new friends, I have used it to keep in touch with family members living in different parts of the world and also used it for entertainment. I also tried Tweeter but did not continue to use it as I felt it was too time consuming. Using Tweeter made me feel obligated, to be always following someone or having to come up with an interesting description of what I was up to in hopes for someone to follow me.Just recently I discovered Pinterest and honestly have fallen in love with it. Pinterest is so useful; I am learning to build a portfolio through Pinterest for my Toddler Story Time.  I am meeting people with similar interests who like what I have to pin or comment and it is just easy to follow and maintain. I have Flickr account but have not been active; I mostly use it to keep track of photographs posted by friends and family.  I have created a few blogger sites but have not taken seriously working on them, may be when I am done with school I can start dedicating more time to each one. The two social network sites that I keep up with the most and almost on a daily basis is Facebook and Pinterest. Facebook is mostly for entertainment purposes, although I have in the past posted a few announcements of events being held at the library. For Pinterest is mostly for professional use, as mention I am trying to create portfolios for my children programs and this include putting together books, songs, music, rhymes etc.

Reflections on Blogging

I have other Google accounts where I have created blogs. I have a blog that I created a few years back just to discuss books that I have read and then I have written in my blogs other subject matters of interest such as traveling, foods that I like etc. I also had to create a blog for another class, but in that blog I was to post reflections on each of our assignments and my others classmates would have to comment on each other’s post. For the most part the blogs that I have read have been from other students. Now I am into learning about what other people are doing out there.

I am now subscribed to other bloggers “Motorcycle Philosophy” “Rude Biker Chick” and “Too Much Tina” these blogs belong to people that I personally know and enjoy reading what they have to say. Their blog is not specific to motorcyclist as they write about other topics such as places that they have traveled to and there is a lot of poetry in their motorcycle riding experiences. What I like about reading other people’s blogs is the stories told, I learn from what they write and also want to share my experiences in their blogs. Blogging is not only another way of communicating, providing information or news but is also another way of keeping in touch. Blogs today are more popular than when they first started, there are many reasons to blog (pleasure, work, school etc).What I do not like about blogs is that it takes time to maintain, unless you are dedicated to it. You may lose touch with your audience or at least those that are following your blog. It requires constant dedication, research, keeping in touch with the comments received and it requires creativity in writing and in attracting other people’s interest in your blog page.