Blogging and libraries

On November 17, over forty eager practitioners gathered in the State Library lecture theatre to hear visiting professor Dr Anne Clyde share her research on 'Blogging and libraries'. Dr Clyde is professor and chair of the Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Iceland. Her teaching responsibilities include courses relating to online searching, library automation and database management.

To get us all on the same page Dr Clyde explained blog is short for web log, a live journal that is updated periodically. Blogs can be interactive allowing viewers to add comments. Wikis allow the viewer to change the original text and post new text. Whatever blogging software you use, we were assured it is an easy and immediate way of publishing information on the internet.

Dr Clyde posed the question why are there so few library blogs in a sea of over four million personal blogs worldwide. With a readership of millions wouldn't libraries want to be involved? Perhaps libraries are happy maintaining their websites and using listservs, bulletin boards and forums to share information. But as we learned, more sites are appearing in blog format, using uncomplicated design, with most recent posts appearing first.

There are few search tools to retrieve information from blogs. Their content is not necessarily listed on Google. Some blogs develop cult status, some are private not for view. There is scope for librarians to assist with finding, creating and indexing blogs. We were reminded blogs of a library nature should link back to the library's online services and include street addresses and opening hours, to advertise the entity that created them.

The audience asked what is the difference between a website and a blog? Dr Clyde answered not much and it doesn't matter in the grand scheme, but blogging software is easy to use, can bypass IT departments and can be less formal. She also spoke of the legitimacy of blogs and that they should not be mistrusted as reliable sources of information.

The audience also asked why Iceland has so many personal bloggers? We all mused maybe it was the weather, or not much on TV, but Dr Clyde answered it may be the wireless links offered in many public areas or the scope for interactivity that this modern society craves. For more on blogging and libraries visit http://hi.is/~anne/weblogs.html. An example of a blog is this one that was created within thirty minutes http://sharrmedal.blogspot.com/.

Thank you to Dr Anne Clyde, ECU's School of Computer and Information Science and ALIA West for providing this event.

Belinda Grayson for ALIA West

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