On March 30, this blog was discussed at the annual meeting of the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) in Chicago. As part of the Committee on Public Services program, Maureen Donovan and Yuji Tosaka (Kent State University graduate student in library and information science) presented an interim report on the blogging project that has been underway for OSU Japanese Collections users since the start of this year.

We had a lively discussion on our blog and hope to use our feedback to improve library services to our users.

The presentation outline and bibliography are as follows:

Blogging at Ohio State: Interim Report on Setting Up a Blog for Ohio State’s Japanese Studies Collection Users

1. What is a blog? Why should a library have it?

Public service benefits of a blog v. home page and mailing list

2. What kind of blog should you have? How can you set up a blog?

Technical aspects: options and software for creating and maintaining a blog

Blogging Project at Ohio State

Converting the existing home page into a blog-based portal web site

Old home page: http://eas.lib.ohio-state.edu/eaj/

New home page: https://library.osu.edu/site/japanese/

What Is a Blog?

Web site listed chronologically with brief posts, updates, and links

Powerful database-driven system for easy, automated web publication

RSS

“Rich Site Summary”

XML code for describing news items or blog updates

RSS feeds generated automatically by the software

RSS reader/aggregator

Other Features

Permalinks

Archives

Different layouts

Open source/free or commercial/low-cost

Blog = content management system (CMS) for small to medium-size web sites

Blogs and Libraries

Current awareness for users

Publicity and promotion

  • Outreach and marketing tool

Interactivity

Easy publication

Collaboration

Blog Design/Layout

What kind of blog should you have?

  • Separate blog for library news, etc.
    • Can you expect users to pay enough attention?
  • Integrated blog as part of the home page
    • Gateway to promote library resources and services

Blog Software and Options

Free external online service or hosting service

Install on your local server

Scripting Skills

XHTML: mark up blog content and structure

CSS: define blog layout

PHP: only need to know what data each tag represents and write HTML tags for display

Ongoing Maintenance and Management

Blog requires planning and commitment to provide regular content

Bibliography

Clyde, Laurel A. Weblogs. http://www.hi.is/~anne/weblogs.html

________. Weblogs and Libraries. Oxford: Chandos, 2004.

Cohen, Steven M. Keeping Current: Advanced Internet Strategies to Meet Librarian and Patron Needs. Chicago: American Library Association, 2003.

Fichter, Darlene. “Why and How to Use Blogs to Promote Your Library’s Services.” Marketing Library Services 17 (Nov/Dec 2003). http://www.infotoday.com/mls/nov03/fichter.shtml

Goans, Doug, and Teri M. Vogel. “Building a Home for Library News with a Blog.” Computers in Libraries 23 (November/December 2003): 20-26.

Library Stuff Blog. http://www.librarystuff.net/

LISFeeds.com http://lisfeeds.com/

Scott, Peter. Peter Scott’s Library Blog. http://blog.xrefer.com/

Westbrook, Lynn. Identifying and Analyzing User Needs: A Complete Handbook and Ready-to-Use Assessment Workbook with Disk. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2001.

Wilson, A. Paula. Library Web Sites: Creating Online Collections and Services. Chicago: American Library Association, 2004.

Wusteman, Judith. “RSS: The Latest Feed.” Library Hi Tech 22 (2004): 404-13.