So what varieties of blogs are in the book?.
No, I don’t mean how many use WordPress or Blogger or whatever. I didn’t record that (and didn’t test printability). It just didn’t seem particularly relevant in this case.
I mean what the blog’s “about.” The most common category is what I characterized as “General”–multipurpose blogs, not aimed at a particular age group, that include library news and hours, events, new materials reviews, what have you. These also include several cases where the library website is a blog, or where the blog feeds directly into the library’s home page.
97 of the blogs fall into the General category, including both blogs for libraries serving fewer than 1,000. Here’s some of the other categories, in the same seemingly meaningless order* as in Chapter 2 of the book.
- Book (new books and summaries); Eight blogs
- Books and more (primarily books but some related posts): Seven blogs
- Book clubs and discussion groups: Six blogs
- Book reviews (sometimes including book clubs, but primarily reviews): Twelve blogs
- Reviews of all sorts of material: Four blogs
- Movies and music: Four blogs
- New item lists with little or no annotation: Three blogs
- New materials, including lists and discussions: Five blogs
- Director’s blogs: Eleven blogs
- Library events: Ten blogs
- Genealogy: Four blogs
- Technology: Six blogs
- Children and KidLit: Eight blogs
- Teens: 36 blogs!
- Tweens: One blog
- Young adults (which could, of course, be teens): Six blogs
- Adult literacy: One blog
- Censorship and banned books: One blog
- Websites of interest: Two blogs
- Community, city, state posts: Two blogs
- Construction projects: Two blogs
- Digital collections: One blog
- Essays (that didn’t seem to fit any other category): Two blogs
- Friends of the Library: One blog
- Gaming: One blog
- Job advice: One blog
- Library staff: Three blogs
- Local history: One blog
- Nonprofits: One blog
- Parents: One blog
- Podcasts: One blog
- Readers’ Advisory: One blog
- Reference: Three blogs
Here’s two paragraphs of Chapter Two, immediately following the detailed list of blogs by type:
The lists above should challenge some of your assumptions as to what smaller libraries can and can’t do. Book review blogs when your library serves fewer than 15,000? See 46923, 06096, 02090. Do directors of under-20,000-user libraries do their own blogs? Maybe even 10,000! See 05301, 06820, 10924, 60521—and, a little larger, the remarkable back-and-forth blog at 60901.
Surely only larger libraries could devote blogs to genealogy? 46511: Service area 3,100. A children’s book blog from a 9,100-person library: 45419. Teen blogs for libraries of under 20,000? Eight of them—go look at the list (and don’t forget the YA blog for a library serving 8,700 people).
What will work for your library and serve your community? That’s up to you to determine–but these examples may help.
*I thought the order made sense at the time, but I’m no longer sure it does. If you see meaning in this order, let me know–maybe I’ve just been going through it too often.
