Nowadays, a blog is becoming so popular that a lot of people use it to express their opinions about politics, culture or whatever they want. However, it is the first time for me to know the blog in detail. Please don’t laugh at me, but it is really my first blog so far.

Here, I will have to ask a question firstly. What is a blog? Although I had come across blogs before, I did not really think about how they worked. The core course, LIBR 500: Foundations of Information Technology, pushes me to look into all kinds of social interaction tools, especially a blog.

A blog is defined as “a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order….”

A blogging expert, Jason Calacanis also gives a precise definition. “There are three main features of a blog: the first is reverse chronological order, the second is unfiltered content — the second somebody filters or edits the author it’s no longer a blog — and the third is comments.”

“Libraries are using blogs to share information, to encourage feedback from library users, to highlight services or new materials, and so on. Many libraries feel that blogs can be great marketing tools, and a fantastic way to become more ‘real’ or ‘approachable’ to users.” (cited from LIBR 500-Module 6 [Part 2], library 2.0 Tools & Services-Blogs)

My understanding of a blog: it’s an unlimited virtual community platform where people can share their opinions and useful information with each other.

Before setting up a library blog, we must ask important questions: What is the purpose of the blog? How will this blog encourage patrons to participate online? The Libraries and Librarians Rock blog gives helpful suggestions for what purposes a blog should serve for your library. These include generating conversation, growing community, listening to what users want, highlighting the collection, and spreading the library news, and so on.

From this Library Blog Page, I guess this blog just opened at the beginning of this year. Therefore, it has many aspects to be developed. To improve this site, I would like to give the following suggestions: first of all, the blog only mentions that it is created by WordPress.com, but it had better provide students with instructions on how to build a blogging and communicate with other students as a means, accompanied by explanation written in suitable language for school students. Second, “Leave a Comment” is hidden behind the “About”, so it is difficult to find it. My suggestion is that the “Leave a Comment” should be very visible in order to encourage students to send their comments to librarians. Third, some service areas should be added into the blog, such as after-school reading programs where the school librarians, students and parents can share library news and talk about students’ book reading. Meanwhile, this kind of services will promote students to debate on topics and interact with their peers. Last but not least, in order to invite more students to participate in the blog, I suggest hiding the widget of “login” so that every student thinks the library blog is open to everyone.

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.)

I think it is easy to link to UBC Japanese Library Resources Blog from the Homepage of UBC’s Asian Library. The blog was created on September 28, 2007, maintained by Japanese language librarian Ms. Shirin Eshghi. It is a very particular academic blog, which highlights Asian library’s some collections of Japanese study and this subject librarian’s expertise by displaying useful and original resources of Japanese literature studies. All posted messages are saved by monthly catalogues, and users can track previous posts. From this blog page, I know recent posts, librarian’s contact information and her calendar. It is clear that many libraries are using this type of blogs to reach out to users in new ways. However, I can’t go back to Asian Library’s Homepage  or UBC Library Homepage from this blog. It does not provide other social service tools. I also wonder why this blog has never received any comment from users so far. I guess maybe very few users visit this blog, although this blog includes very interesting topics and beautiful pictures. This blog neither states its purpose.

This is a great place for librarians to take advantage of Web 2.0 connective potential. Here I would like to give some suggestions: the first one, the posted topics might be broader, not only Japanese literature and culture, but also Japan’s economy, foreign affairs, politics, technology and other fields. The second, the subject librarian is supposed to consult faculties and graduate students who focus on Japan’s studies:  What research projects are they doing now? What kind of resources do they really need? Thirdly, the subject librarian can also try to ask for Japanese students at UBC what kind of good resources they can recommend. At the same time, Asian library must facilitate cooperation between UBC and Japan’s top universities to achieve resource sharing with each other and help the subject librarian to build an international community of professionals.

All posts are categorized as different columns and archived chronologically by date. For example, users who are interested in film can quickly find out news from “Movie Mondays” which gives some detailed descriptive information about each film. In this way, when the post becomes old, a user still can retrieve it without inherent problems by using “Search blog posts”. The blog also provides an RSS feed, students and faculties are able to know new programs, events and knowledge from the updated news. Furthermore, if a user is very concerned about improving the blog, there is a place – “Your Suggestions & Comments” for any user to freely contribute his or her ideas. The blog’s layout is very simple and easy to follow for first time users. The blog is also searchable, and users are also invited to leave their comments or reviews.

However, some deficits exist on this blog page. The sidebar of “read a blog” is too tiny and buried among Library News, so it is difficult for a user who is not familiar with the library’s homepage to find it. I suggest listing library 2.0 tools in one place. This layout encourages the users who are specifically looking for library blog to try other social network tools such as Facebook, Delicious Bookmarks, Twitter and Flickr on the right down side of the library homepage. At the same time, the blog page should be designed with colorful tags so that it obviously appears to every user. In addition, this blog have no “About” on the blog page, so it is not clear for users to understand its goal or mission. With a few minor adjustments, I believe that this blog would be very easy-to-use.

I feel Michigan Library Consortium is a very good example of the library association blogs, which not only provides a platform for all members to communicate with each other by the blog’s categories such as Annual Meeting, General Interest, Community-Building, but also gives its members new skill information about Open Source Software and Technology. Of course, it is also open to the public. I can access many types of blogs such as Digitization Blog, Teen Zone Blog and InfoToday Blog, and so on. Information on library stuff is also available on the blog. I really believe that this blog builds up interaction between members just as the goals of MLC: “partnerships, solutions, excellence.”

After checking many posts, I have found these posts are always updated regularly. As a visitor, I can easily navigate previous posts from monthly archives or search any individual posts through “GO!”. I also can add my comments or move to the homepage of MLC smoothly. Certainly, the blog tag is very apparent without any difficulties to find it,  integrating with News & Announcements, Communique, Evergreen and Wiki in blue color on the frst line of the MLC’s homepage, and it also links to other Web 2.0 tools and library service tools.

To sum up, the blog is equipped with entire necessary elements. The overall design is simple, whether usability, attractiveness or its readability is very excellent. I recommend it as a great blog for library associations.

OPL also has other types of blogs: Around the Corner Kid’s Blog, Hoopla, Notes from A Reader and Teen Blog. This special design absolutely is amazing and attracts patrons’ attention. Actually, their bolgs have achieved good outcomes. Some posts in the Teen Blog got more than four or five comments. That indicates teenagers are very interested in their posts. 

In addition, all posts in the blog are very up-to-date with beautiful pictures and funny cartoons. Its layout is simple and all tools are easy-to use. The tag of the blog is very visible on the Library’s Homepage, and users also can go anywhere from the blog page. The overall usability of tools fits in with other tools well. This blog has comments RSS and search tool. As a user, I can search posts’ information from achieves or send my comments to this blog. That’s so great! The Library states the Blog’s Policy clearly and it’s very beneficial for the library to achieve its mission.

To sum up, I really like OPL’s blog. If I become a public librarian in the future, I recommend it as a good example to build up our blog. I believe most patrons including inexperienced users will love it.

This wiki was created using pbwiki. I could not find it on Library Homepage at all. By now, the library of UCSC is not good one among library homepages I have browsed, because I am not able to find other Web 2.0 tools except photoblog on its library homepage. In fact, I located this wiki by Google searching. There is also no link from University Library Homepage to the wiki page. I guess this is because the wiki is not formally affliliated with the University library. Maybe it was just created for a student group project.

This wiki seems to fit in well with other features of University Library Homepage, such as Home, Library Info, Services and Research. In fact, it just links to the library homepage without any difference. Thus, this is a fairly simple wiki, which only introduces five courses of East Asian Studies. It has many aspects to be improved. The only good point is that this wiki provides a little bit of Chinese culture website links.  

In a word, this library gives me a deep impression that it is probably not interested in Web 2.0 tools.