Week 2 Assignment: Weblogs

Introduction
A blog or Weblog is a web site that contains information or entries arranged in date order with the most recent entry appearing first on the page. Blog content can range from a personal diary to something far more formal.

Creating a successful weblog
There are a number of steps to creating a successful blog:

Content Appropriate content for the audience served
Design Attractive, quality standards (punctuation, spelling) structure and consistency
Tone Conversational to attract and engage users, and to encourage discourse and comment
Currency Post content and respond to comments regularly

Using blogs in the library setting
There are perhaps a number of roles that blogs can play in the library setting here at Birmingham Women’s Hospital (BWH), for example, to promote services and events, to communicate library news and to encourage the use of new technologies. However, the interest in and uptake of these types of blogs should be addressed. Scout Blogging believes using a blog to promote products and services will fail as blogging culture is about real people sharing their personal experiences and insights, and engaging others in thoughtful conversation. I am therefore thinking to try something less formal, that will be useful to the audience served and provoke free discussion and debate. I'm not sure yet how to progress with this but I'm thinking something around some of the training courses or the journal club that the library provides. I'm hoping as this course progresses that I'll get more ideas, and the next step would be to put one in practice and evaluate the success. My concern is how much interest there is likely to be, but I guess there is only one way to find out and that is to give it a go!

Bloging at BWH
In order to start blogging at BWH the following is necessary:

Liaise with the IT department in terms of the technical requirements needed (keeping a log of technical problems experienced during my participation in this course will help when discussing requirements). Aspects that need to be considered include the installation of blogging software (locally on a desktop or Web server) / considering password protection if content should stay within the hospital firewall / how should the blog integrate with the existing library website etc.

Research the different blogging tools to ensure the best one is selected in terms of the functions provided eg search, archives, comments, RSS. The Annenburg Center provides a useful comparison chart of blogging tools and features

Set up a blogging account

Decide on the audience and topic

Use an appropriate blog name

Consider quality standards – put something together to encourage consistency especially if more than one person is maintaining the blog

Set-up an RSS feed to the blog and inform the hospital community to use an RSS newsreader to view

Promote and advertise as widely as possible, and consider giving demonstrations

Conclusion
Blogs are a useful new technology that are worth exploring and putting into practice both for personal use and in the work environment.