5 UK Library stories of 2010

Last year I did a blog post entitled 5 UK Library stories of 2009. So, being someone with an originality, I thought I would repeat the top five stories for this year. I do say, some may disagree with my choices, but its just my view point.

1. Last year at number 1 I had the CILIP 2.0 discussion, that Phil Bradley had started. Phil had discussed the need for change within CILIP. So much so that Phil is now Vice President of CILIP. It was interesting in it seemed to be very much a twitter campaign for canvassing. It was also good news for library professionals in the UK, in a year with very little cheer.

2. The creation of Voices for the library. Created as an advocacy site to stop the library public closures and underline what libraries offer, the site has even been mentioned within the Guardian after being online for just four months. The people working on it are doing an excellent job.

3. The real wikiman's post and presentation with Woodsiegirl entitled Escaping the Echo Chamber – presentation. Again, looking at how we can go beyond just talking to our own community of librarians to underline a librarians value to customers, society and the economy.

4. Thank you for not tweeting, was a post about tweeting at a CILIP event and how other users didn't like it and told people off (myself included).

5. And last but not least my own post entitled Good Library blog.....missing the point.....as usual in which I looked in which Tim Coates wrote an inflammatory post about library closures and his attempt at 'assisting' libraries from closing. 25 comment later, seems neither party could agree who was correct.

Well, thats it.

The annoyance of bloglines

I have been using Bloglines since I started this blog. Unfortunately, for the past 24 hours its been down. Techcrunch has an interesting article. I think I may need to transfer to Google reader.

100 library blogs to read

(Found via here), here is a FAIRLY good list of the top 100 best blogs for library science students. I did note that infotangle was there (even though its not been updated since 2007). There was one that was also in Arabic. Ummm, perhaps they should do there research properly.

Should I quit blogging post

(Found via here) Stephen Abram pointed me in the direction of this post 'Should I Quit Blogging?' by Darren Rowse. I have mentioned previously, and although Walt Crawford responded by saying:-

Blogging has had a low persistence rate for years. I'd like to think that the best bloggers are sticking around...but I've always been a Candide at heart.

Rowse's response to the decline of blogging wrote following:-

Blogging is not dead - it’s evolving.

You should be evolving too (read Blogs are Out of Beta, But Bloggers Should always be in Beta)
Keep being useful, keep solving problems and keep meeting needs - whatever the medium this is key.

Keep producing content - people continue to search the web for content in huge numbers. It’s not all about networking and bookmarking - whether it be text, video or audio - keep producing content.

Experiment with different mediums - to the best of your ability keep abreast of the ‘new’ mediums that are emerging.

Build a ‘Home Base’ - many people flit from one medium to another and end up with nothing of their own (read more on the Home Bases and Outposts that I use).

Build a Brand - the mediums are tools. They’ll come and go in time - the key is to build something that lasts beyond them.

Don’t be Precious about your ‘Blog’ and be open to change - there’s no one ‘right’ way to blog. Blogs can have comments or not have comments, have full RSS feeds or partial ones, look like a traditional blog or act and look more like a lifestream or portal. The key is to know what you want to achieve and let that shape what you do with your blog.

Don’t abandon your blog too quickly - your primary efforts may move into a different medium but blogs can be an important part of the mix of what you do online. Don’t abandon your blog - build upon it, let it evolve, leverage what you’ve already built and use it where appropriate in the mix of what you do.

I think its a pretty good article about how blogging is a great tool. I'm hoping to soon add to Darren's list in the near future on why I blog.

[Just Tweet It] New Listing On: Librarians.....the only emails I know seem to get

Since David Rothman informed us of the librarian twitter feed, I went and joined. I am know getting constant updates of new joiners. I am actually quite enjoying adding new feeds to my bloglines. Its been good to discover these new blogs. I love serendipity.

British library blogs

I noted that Jennie Law has an interesting blog entry entitled UK librarian blogs - the list so far. Like it says, it notes all British library based blogs.

libraries and blogging

As I have said so many times before (1 & 2). As the dissertation is about libraries,librarians and blogging, I thought I would do some interviews to get some idea's etc. But, what I found disconcerting (and I should've known this), was the lack of library blogs, in comparison to librarians who blog.
Is it me, or wouldn't a libraries advocacy be better placed by allowing libraries and customers to interface by this technology (and others)? I mean I'm not trying to sound like an old sour puss (which I can be), but I then came accross an a forum discussion on librarian blogger ning entitled Working our way around the red tape, in which Kirsten was trying to set up a blog but all blog entries would have to go through there PR department. Please. How ineffective is that? It seems weird as library professionals w can talk to ourselves through blogs but not our users.
Anyhow, thankful I sent a request to for libraries that blog and got inundated with offers of assistance. Thanks for that.

The week that was.........

Another week and another three blogs to add.
1.Having discussed Revish before, its seems it will be rolling out on march the 30th. Revish is different to other social cataloguing sites, in that its more about book reviews. Looking forward to it.
2. Still enjoying the social networking site for library 2.0 on ning. I've recently joined the librarian blogger for ning. check it.
3. Rachel Singer Gordon, over on Liminal Librarian asks what other 5 (non) library blogs they read. People have time to read non-library blogs?