Comments on: Good blogs, bad blogs

By: walt

walt — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:45:35 +0000

Color me surprised. I didn’t stay at that site long enough to see whether people were naming their own libraries; one could only hope they’d have better sense, but given the tone of the first page, that hope might be in vain.

I guess my “I’d be surprised” deals only with “official blogs”–I’d be surprised to see *a library* put its name on a blog that tears down its clientele or its community. There are certainly some strongly negative liblogs! In some cases I’ve unsubscribed from them…

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:38:17 +0000

You state that you would be surprised to see a blog that tears down its own library as being worthless, doomed, whatever, or one that makes fun or demeans patrons. Unfortunately, I have an example. Library Mofo (http://community.livejournal.com/library_mofo). While not exactly a blog, this is a Live Journal group that allows librarians anywhere to vent about customer interactions (many times in a very demeaning manner). While a majority of librarians are trying to find ways to use Web 2.0 technology to reach out to customers, these people are using Web 2.0 technology in a very negative way.

By: walt

walt — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:26:21 +0000

Jessamyn,

Indeed, “not everyone can have a blog like AADL”–and although AADL is certainly in the book (and on the list of “intriguing blogs” that might or might not stay in the book), it’s an intimidating example for small or medium–sized libraries.

In some ways, I’m more impressed by the blogs at libraries with fewer than 400 people in their service area (which are both, if I remember correctly, blogs-as-library-websites). And by some very dynamic blogs in libraries still small enough to be considered rural.

I’m really hoping that this book will be helpful to smaller libraries by showing what’s actually being done.

As for blogs that are deliberately not being updated–I’ve seen a few with a final post saying that it’s a final post and why. Of course, several dozen just disappeared…

Now here’s my question: Why are so many public library blogs in the 0s (that is, in zip codes beginning with 0)? When the book comes out, you’ll see what I mean…

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:48:39 +0000

I occasioanlly point to “bad” blogs when I’m giving my talks, not to say “oh hey these people are bad” but mostly to point out that not everyone can have a blog like AADL and it’s totally okay to try things out and not hit the ground running. A lot of the blogs I point out are either new (so without a lot of comments or activity) or were for a specific purpose and still sort of hanging there. It’s hard to shut down a blog for some people, so even if the book club is no longer active, I think some libraries aren’t sure what to do with the blook club blog, or how to keep the content but indicate that it’s now static, not dynamic.

In any case, I think it’s good that you pointed this out generally. I think people sometimes compare their blogs to what they see as “better” blogs and feel weird about their own blogs, but really if your blog is doing what you want it to do, or trying to, and your staff/patrons don’t hate it, it’s probably as good a blog as you need.