An excited librarian from Chicago and I talked a bit at the very end of the conference last week. She was totally amped up on blogging and wanted to get started ASAP. I gave her my email address and told her to shoot me an email when she did. She has, but she’s in a bit of a dilemma. She’s quite sure what to do now.
This is a good and important question so I replied back that I’d post about it here for the benefit of more. I have a few thoughts, but I’d like to first refer everyone an article that I found via Tame the Web. It is by Greg Schwartz and worth reading for sure. It is titled Blogs for Libraries. There’s a section perfectly titled for the above question: What do you do with a blog?
My thoughts on the subject are as follows. Only blog if it helps. Helps what? Only blog if it helps the institution you work for, helps you, helps the library community or otherwise solves some problem. Publishing to the web via blogging may seem exciting now, but if it doesn’t serve a purpose there is a good chance that it will get old and tired. If, however, some benefits blossom from your efforts, the behavior will be reinforced and it will remain exciting.
To get comfortable with the technology, start a blog and fool around a bit. Post some random things to get the feel for it and see where it takes you. If you’ve got some strong or unique views about your area of librarianship, share them with others. Remember: just because certain things seem obvious to you, doesn’t mean they are to others. With any luck, your niche will need filling in the library blogosphere and people will start reading it.
