The design of the blog is very organized and pretty user-friendly. Its natural layout makes me feel free to approach the information sources. On the Blog Homepage there are clearly visible four sections: Research Tools, About the Libraries, Services and Help. “Ask A Librarian” is much visible with a big question mark. It is easy for patrons to locate the tool/service from the Library’s Homepage. In particular, it fits in with the new students to find what services the library can provide. To my interesting, talking in the library is a very good section which tells users the fact that the library has a social networking profile. It consists of Blogs List, Classes, Flickr Photos, New Books Feeds, Talking in the Library Blog, Infoteck, iTak Training, News Resource, and so on. For example, if a user clicks the “Talking in the library blog”, she or he is allowed to upload a picture of the item or Youtube. It also has a section for comments on the bottom of the blog, so that readers may contribute to this blog.
The blog page of the library has three categories: Committees and Department, General Library Information, Of Interests to Our Users. Obviously, it is very easy to users to find information they need efficiently. At the same time, this blog is accessible to other library service tools such as catalog, E-Journals, Site Index, Databases and Ask A Librarian, and it is also searchable. However, all of them are presented by text, without videos or slides, so I feel a little bit boring. Besides, the blog page is hidden behind “Talking in the library”, so I feel difficult for inexperienced users to find it quickly.
In a word, if a user gets here, he or she will join an active university community, just like what Michael Stephens particularly describes: “Why a Blog at Your Library? The tools, such as WordPress (www.wordpress.org), are free. The tools enable blog authors to post content to the Web faster than submitting it to a single Web developer or to the over-burdened IT department. Posting to a blog, or blogging as it is often called, can create a flow of information to users and allow them to comment on posts if so desired. Librarians can promote their resources to users as well as promote the library-all with a single, virtually free tool.” (Stephens, Michael. “Web 2.0 & Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software”. Library Technology Report. Jul/Aug. 2006 (42:4): 18.)
