There may be times when there is no longer effort available to continue to maintain a blog. There may also be occasions when a blog has fulfilled its purpose. In such cases there is a need to close the blog in a managed fashion. An example of a project blog provided by UKOLN which was closed in such a managed fashion after the project had finished is the JISC SIS Landscape Study blog. The final blog post [1] is shown below.

Figure 1: Announcement of the Closure of the JISC SIS Landscape Study Blog

The blog post makes it clear to the reader that no new posts will be published and no additional comments can be provided. Summary statistics about the blog are also provided which enables interested parties to have easy access to a summary showing the effectiveness of the blog service.

Reasons For Blog Closure

Blogs may need to be closed for a number of reasons:

• The blog author(s) may find it too time-consuming to continue to maintain a blog or to find ideas to write about or the initial enthusiasm may have waned.
• The blog author(s) may have left the organisation or have moved to other areas of work.
• The blog may not be providing an adequate return on investment.
• A blog may be withdrawn due to policy changes of managerial edict.
• The original purposes for the blog may no longer be relevant.
• Funding to continue to maintain the blog may no longer be available.

Prior to managing the closure of a blog it is advisable to ensure that the reasons for the closure of the blog are well understood and appropriate lessons are learnt.

Possible Approaches

A simple approach to closing a blog is to simple publish a final post giving an appropriate announcement, possibly containing a summary of the achievements of the blog. Comment submissions should be disabled to avoid spam comments being published. This was the approach taken by the JISC SIS Landscape Study blog [1]. [1].

A more draconian approach would be to delete the blog. This will result in the contents of the blog being difficult to find, which may be of concern if useful content has been published. If this approach has to be taken (e.g. if the blog software can no longer be supported or the service is withdrawn) it may be felt desirable to ensure that the contents of the blog are preserved.

Preserving the Contents of the Blog

A Web harvesting tool (e.g. WinTrack) could be used to copy the contents of the blog’s Web site to another location. An alternative approach would be to migrate the content using the log’s RSS feed. If this approach is taken you should ensure that an RSS feed for the complete content is used. A third approach would be to create a PDF resource of the blog site. Further advice is provided at [2].

References

1. Goodbye, JISC SIS Landscape Study blog, 3 Feb 2010,
   <http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/jisc-sis-landscape/2010/02/03/goodbye/>
2. The Project Blog When The Project Is Over, UK Web Focus blog, 15 Mar 2010
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/the-project-blog-when-the-project-is-over/>

Many blog services allow comments to be made on the blog posts. This facility is normally configurable via the blog owner’s administrator’s interface. An example of the interface in the WordPress blog is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Administrator’s Interface for Blog Comments on WordPress Blog

The Need For A Policy

A policy on dealing with comments made to blog posts is advisable in order to handle potential problems. How should you address the following concerns, for example:

• Your comments are full of spam messages.
• Abusive comments are posted.
• Comments are posted to old messages with content which is no longer relevant.
• Excessive amount of resources are need to manage blog comments.

A blog post and subsequent discussion [1] on the UK Web Focus blog identified a number of views on policies on the moderation of blog comments which are summarised in this briefing document.

Moderated or Unmoderated Blog Comments

A simple response to such concerns might be to require all comments to be approved by the blog moderator. However this policy may hinder the development of a community based around a blog by providing a bottleneck which slows down the display of comments. In a situation in which a blog post is published late on a Friday afternoon, a blog discussion which could take place over the weekend is liked to be stifled by the delayed approval of such comments.

The UK Web Focus blog allows comments to be posted without the need for approval by the blog administrator, although a name and email address do have to be provided. It should be recognised, however, that the lack of a moderation process could mean that automated spam comments are submitted to the blog, thus limiting the effectiveness of the blog and the comment facility. The UK Web Focus blog, however, is hosted on WordPress.com which provides a comment spam filtering service called Akismet. This service has proved very effective in blocking automated spam [2].

Differing Policies for Different Types of Blogs

The policy of moderation of comments to a blog is likely to be dependent on a number of factors such as: (a) the availability of automated spam filtering tools; (b) the effort need to approve comments; (c) the effort needed to remove comments which have failed to be detected by the spam filter; (d) the purpose of the blog and (e) the likelihood that inappropriate comments may be posted.

Publicising Your Policy

It would be helpful for blog owners to make their policies on content moderation clear. An example of a policy can be seen from [3]. It may be useful for your policy to allow for changes in the light of experiences. If you require moderation of comments but find that this hinders submission of comments, you may chose to remove the moderation. However if you find that an unmoderated blog attracts large amount on unwanted comments you may decide to introduce some form of comment moderation.

References

1. Moderated Comments? Closed Comments? No Thanks!, UK Web Focus blog, 15 Feb 2010,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/moderated-comments-closed-comments-no-thanks/>
2. A Quarter of a Million and Counting, UK Web Focus blog, 6 Jun 2008,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/a-quarter-of-a-million-and-counting/>
3. Blog Policies, UK Web Focus blog,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/blog-policies/>

About This Document

This document gives advice on addressing possible barriers you might face when setting up a blog in a cultural heritage context.

Piloting Your Blogging Service

Libraries will often trial a service to test the product and to gauge the response of their library users. Developing your blog as a ‘pilot’ project provides a low-risk, comfortable environment to experiment with the service, and gather feedback from your library community. Setting up the service as a trial allows bloggers and their managers or colleagues to see exactly how much time or resource support is required. It also provides an exit or withdrawal strategy if needed.

Small-scale Activities

Experiment with blogs by supporting a small-scale activity, such as a special event or occasion. This negates the need for ongoing support or commitment, but it gives a taste of the strengths and opportunities of blogs.

A blog for an internal working party or committee is another way to introduce blogs. Inviting library staff to join a closed membership blog gives the opportunity to experiment with the blog and add posts and comments without it being exposed to the general public.

Policies To Soothe Institutional Concerns

Many organisations are reluctant to release material to their library users until it has been vetted by a publications group or similar process. This may be presented as a barrier to establishing a blogging service. To counter this argument, it may be wise to develop a robust set of policies outlining the quality processes to which the blog style and content will be subjected (see briefing paper no. 5 on Developing Blog Policies [1]).

Include a statement in your blog policies to welcome feedback and notification of errors, and that any identified problems will be addressed as quickly as possible. A fundamental advantage of blogs is that they allow for immediate alterations or changes.

Low Cost, Minimal Resources

Many conventional communications have associated costs (paper, laminating, etc) but setting up a blog can be a low cost solution. Popular blogging sites like WordPress, Typepad, LiveJournal and Blogger allow for template modification to match organisational themes for no outlay. Little knowledge of HTML or design principles is needed to create a professional-looking blog.

Demystifying Blogs With Best Practice Examples

Your library colleagues have likely come across negative as well as positive coverage of blogs and blogging in the press. Blogs have been described as vanity publishing and as a platform on which anyone can relate excruciatingly detailed minutiae of their lives.

Responsible blogging offers the opportunity to engage with your library users using a format with which they are familiar. There are many great library related blogs available and it may help to build these into a collection for circulation amongst your colleagues. Look at the blogrolls on your favourite blogs for new leads or keep an eye on your library association literature for pointers to new blogs displaying best practices.

Participating On Other Blogs

It will help to advocate for a blogging service if you are familiar with blog processes and have actively engaged or participated in blogging. Build your confidence by participating in group blogs, or set up a blog outside of work. If you are part of a society or organisation, start a blog to highlight the group’s events or activities. Use a blog to record your professional development, such as library association chartership.

Demonstrating Value

Hosted blog services all contain built-in statistical reporting, providing information on number of views and popular posts. It may be useful to read the ‘Evaluating your Blog‘ Briefing Paper [2] for more information on demonstrating the value of a blog.

Encouraging Enthusiasts

Seek out blog ‘champions’ or colleagues who are supportive of blogging activities. One approach for creating interest may be to add a ‘Learn to blog’ session to your staff development activities. Invite colleagues (or better yet – users!) who are blog enthusiasts to share their activities.

References

1. 1. Developing Blog Policies, Cultural heritage briefing document no. 5, UKOLN,
   <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/documents/briefing-5/>
2. Evaluating Your Blog, Cultural heritage briefing document no. 10, UKOLN,
   <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/documents/briefing-10/>

About This Document

This document provides advice on a variety of technical issues which need to be addressed when you are planning your blog service.

Externally Hosted Or Locally Hosted Software?

Where should you host your blog software? Traditionally when organisations have wished to provides IT services they have either installed software in-house, or negotiated a contract with an external provider. However many Web 2.0 services, including blogs, can be used for free by external blog providers such as WordPress or Blogger.

What are the pros and cons of making use of a 3rd party service?

Advantages

Little technical expertise needed. No negotiations with an IT Services department needed. You can select your preferred providers based on your requirements, rather than needing to comply with locally approved solutions. You may have more flexibility and be able to experiment with a service provided by a third party.

Disadvantages

There may be risks related to the long term availability of a third-party service. You may not be able to be guaranteed desired levels of service. There may be legal issues, such as data protection, privacy, accessibility, etc. which could be unresolved. You will not receive the level of support you would receive from an in-house supported product.

Note that a briefing document on “Risk Assessment For Use Of Third Party Web 2.0 Services” [1] provides further information on the risks of using externally-hosted services.

Selection Of The Software

It may be useful to make the choice of the architecture (in-house or external) and the particular blog software by considering the choices made by similar organisations to yours. Discussions on mailing lists (e.g. the lis-bloggers mailing list [2] may be helpful.

Blog Configuration Options

Once you have selected your blog software and either installed it or set up an account, you will then have to make various decisions about how the blog is configured. This will include:

Appearance of the blog

You will normally be able to select a ‘theme’ for your blog, from a number of options, which may cover the number of columns, use of sidebars for additional content, etc. You may also wish to brand your blog with logos, organisational colour scheme, etc. Note, though, that configuration options may not be available (or may cost) with third-party blog services.

Additional Content

You may wish to provide additional content on your blog. This might include additional pages or content in the blog’s sidebar, such as a ‘blogroll’ of links to related blogs or blog ‘widgets’. An example of the administrator’s interface for blog widgets on the UK Web Focus blog is shown.

Tags

You may wish to chose the ‘categories’ (or tags) to be associated with your posts. This will allow readers to easily access related posts. You may wish to select categories prior to the launch of your blog; you will be able to add new categories at a later date.

Policy on User Comments

You will need to establish a policy of whether you allow your readers to give comments on blog posts and, if you do, whether such comments need to be moderated before being appended to a blog post.

Options for Blog Authors

You may need to set up various options for contributors to this blog. This might include use of spell checkers, conventions for how dates are displayed, email addresses of the contributors, etc.

Managing Accounts

If you have chosen to have a team blog, you will need to set up accounts for the contributors to the blog.

References

1. Risk Assessment For Use Of Third Party Web 2.0 Services, QA Focus briefing document no. 98, UKOLN,
   <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/briefings/briefing-98/>
2. lis-bloggers, JISCMail,
   <http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/LIS-BLOGGERS.html>

About This Document

This document provides advice on approaches you can take to evaluating the effectiveness of your blog.

The Role Of Your Blog

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of your blog, you should have a clear idea of its purpose (although you may find that the purpose evolves over time). Possible uses of a blog service include acting as a dissemination channel for an organisation, engaging the user community in discussion and debate acting as a gateway to other resources, or perhaps more speculative purposes, such as experimentation or ‘thinking out loud’.

Policies For Your Blog

It may be advantageous to provide documented policies for your blog, which might include details of the purpose(s) of your blog, the scope and target audience and possibly details of quality assurance processes you will use to ensure the blog implements its purposes successfully.

The UK Web Focus blog has published its policy statement [1], which includes details of its purposes (dissemination, user engagement, providing information on and commentary on new Web technologies, experimentation with blog tools and speculative thinking), scope (Web and related issues) and target audiences (Web development community, especially in the UK education and cultural heritage sectors).

Feedback For Your Blog Posts

If your blog aims to provide two-way communications, you should allow comments to be made for individual posts. One policy decision you will have to make is whether to allow unmoderated comments to be made. This can provide a more interactive service, but there may be risks in allowing inappropriate posts to be published.

User comments on individual posts will help you to gain feedback on the content of the posts. In order to encourage your blog readers to post their comments, you should seek to provide speedy responses to comments which are made.

Evaluating Blog Usage

If only small numbers of people read your blog, then it may fail to fulfil its purpose (if the purposes are dissemination and user engagement; for blogs used for other purposes, such as reflective thinking, such usage statistics may not be relevant). Systematic monitoring of your blog site’s usage statistics can therefore be helpful in identifying the effectiveness and potential impact of your blog service.

The diagram shows growth in visits to the UK Web Focus blog since its launch in November 2006, with a steady increase in numbers (until August 2007 when many readers were away).

Note that if your blog readers make significant use of RSS readers or your blog is aggregated in other locations, your blog site’s usage statistics may under-report the numbers of readers.

What Are They Saying About You?

It can be useful to explore the links users follow when they read your posts. Such information may be provided on your blog service. For example the image shows a number of the referrer links to recent posts on the UK Web Focus blog. In this case, two links are from blogs which commented on a post about a Web service called VCasmo. The comments give an indication of the blog’s effectiveness and impact.

As can be seen in their use with the UK Web Focus blog, blog search engines such as Technorati [2] and Google Blog search [3] can help find posts which link to your blog.

Systematic Evaluation

It may prove useful to carry out an online evaluation of your blog, as was done towards the end of the first year of the UK Web Focus blog [4].

References

1. Blog Policies, UK Web Focus blog,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/blog-policies/>
2. Blog Reactions, Technorati,
   <http://technorati.com/blogs/ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/?reactions>
3. Google Blog Search, Google,
   <http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?q=link:http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/>
4. Your Feedback On The UK Web Focus Blog, UK Web Focus blog, 23 Aug 2007,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/your-feedback-on-the-uk-web-focus-blog/>



Background

The briefing document provides suggestions on approaches you can take to building a blogging community, including a community of authors and a community of peers.

The Potential Benefits Of A Blogging Community

Blogging is often perceived of as an individual activity. However successful blogs are likely to involve community building, whether this is a community of co-authors, a community of readers or a community of peers.

Team Blogging

The responsibilities of producing regular blog posts over an extended period may be onerous. A solution to this would be to provide a team blog, in which the task of identifying topics of interest, writing the post and responding to comments can be shared. The Archive Hub blog provides an example of this type of approach [1]

It should be noted, though, that a team approach can dilute the ‘voice’ of a blog, and may not be applicable in all cases.

Guest Blog Posts

Another approach to sharing responsibilities for writing posts may be to encourage occasional guest blog posts. This approach has been taken on the UK Web Focus blog [2]. Advantages of guest blog posts include adding variety and a different voice to your blog, providing a forum for others and engaging with new communities.

Blog Widgets To Support Community-Building

Blog widgets enable additional functionality to be provided on your blog. A wide range of blog widgets are available which cover a range of functions. Of relevance to this document are widgets which can support community building. Widgets such as Meebo [3] and TokBox [4] provide realtime text chat and video conferencing facilities for your blog which can help to provide more interactive and engaging services for your blog readers.

Engaging With Your Peers

Another approach to community-building is sharing experiences and best practices with one’s peers, such as fellow bloggers who work in the same sector.

In the information sector this could include participating in mailing lists aimed at the blogging community (such as the lis-bloggers JISCMail list [5]) or participating in social networking services, such as the Library 2.0 Ning group [6] or the Library 2.0 Interest Group Facebook group [7].

Staff Development

An important aspect in the provision of quality blogging services is professional development for those involved in the provision of blog services. Fortunately there are a range of online services available which can be used to improve one’s blogging skills. As well as blogs provided by experienced information professionals [8] and [9] there are online blogging courses, such as the 31 Days project [10].

References

1. Archives Hub Blog, Archives Hub,
   <http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/blog/>
2. Guest Blog Posts, UK Web Focus Blog,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/tag/blog/guest-post/>
3. Meebo – A Follow-Up, UK Web Focus Blog, 26 Jan 2007,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2007/01/26/meebo-a-follow-up/>
4. TokBox – A Useful Video-Conferencing Tool Or Something Sinister?, UK Web Focus Blog, 19 Sep 2007,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2007/09/19/tokbox-a-useful-video-conferencing-tool-or-something-sinister/>
5. lis-bloggers, JISC Mail,
   <http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/LIS-BLOGGERS.html>
6. Library 2.0, Ning,
   <http://library20.ning.com/>
7. Library 2.0 Interest Group, Facebook,
   <http://bathac.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2212848798>
8. Phil Bradley’s Blog,
   <http://www.philbradley.typepad.com/>
9. Tame The Web blog, Michael Stephens,
   <http://tametheweb.com/>
10. 31 Days to a Building Better Blog Challenge, The Bamboo Project,
    <http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog/join-the-31-days-to-build.html>

About This Document

This document provides advice on steps you may wish to take once you are in the process of launching a blog.

Claiming Your Blog In Technorati

Technorati is the best known search engine for blogs. If you wish to make the contents in your blog easily found by others you are advised to ‘claim your blog’ in Technorati.

This process involves first registering with Technorati [1] and then providing the address of your blog to Technorati [2] and keywords which are relevant for your blog. This enables Technorati to automatically index new posts, shortly after they have been published. Please note that, in order to stop others from claiming your blog (which would enable them to view statistics for your blog) you will need to temporarily embed some special code in your blog in order to establish that you own the blog).

Accessing Technorati Information About Your Blog

Once you have successfully claimed your blog you should find that your blog posts will be indexed by Technorati shortly after they have been published. To check this, simply sign in to the Technorati Web site and you should be able to view further information about your blog, including details of the posts which have been indexed. You can also see details of Technorati users who have added your blog to their list of favourites. You may wish to use Technorati to add blogs you find of interest to your list of favourites.

Viewing Technorati Statistics

You will also find that Technorati provides statistics for the Authority and Ranking for your blog. This is based on the numbers of links there are from other blogs (which Technorati knows about) to your blog over a period of 6 months.

Further information on these statistics is available on the Technorati Web site [3].

Keeping Records

It can be useful to ensure that you keep records related to the usage and impact of your blog from its launch.

Many blog services will provide statistics on the numbers of visitors to the blog Web site, but you may find it useful to complement this with an embedded usage monitoring service such as SiteMeter, used on the UK Web Focus blog [4].

As described on the UK Web Focus blog [5] services such as Blotter can be used to visualise the trends in Technorati ratings, as illustrated. This can be helpful in making it easy to spot sudden jumps or falls in the ratings.

Marketing Your Blog

As well as making use of various Web services which can help users to find your blog, you should also implement a marketing strategy for your blog. Possible approaches to this could include: (a) including details of your blog in your email signature, your business card, etc. (b) providing flyers, posters, etc. about your blog and (c) citing blog posts in other media, such as in responses to email queries, in presentations, etc.

Documented Experience

The experiences gained after launching the UK Web Focus blog in November 2006, including details of ‘claiming’ of the blog and how this helped people to find the blog and how this helped in attracting traffic have been documented in the blog [6] [7].

References

1. Member Sign Up, Technorati,
   <http://technorati.com/account>
2. My Account, Technorati,
   <http://technorati.com/account/blogs/>
3. What Is Authority?, Technorati,
   <http://support.technorati.com/faq/topic/71?replies=1>
4. SiteMeter Added To Blog, UK Web Focus blog, 22 Jan 2007,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2007/01/22/sitemeter-added-to-blog/>
5. Blogging And Learning From Ones Peers, UK Web Focus blog, 31 May 2007,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2007/05/31/blogging-and-learning-from-ones-peers/>
6. I’ve A Blog – What Next?, UK Web Focus blog, 6 Nov 2006,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2006/11/06/ive-a-blog-what-next/>
7. Word of Blog – 3 Week’s Later, UK Web Focus blog, 23 Nov 2006
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2006/11/26/word-of-blog-3-weeks-later/>

About This Document

The briefing document provides advice on implementing quality assurance processes for the content of your blog, including the establishment of appropriate editorial processes, identification of an appropriate writing style, mechanisms for minimising spam and approaches to ensuring you blog contains quality content.

Quality Process Issues

There are two important quality issues for blogging success – style and content. Readers of your blog will notice poor spelling or grammar, and unstructured ramblings are unlikely to maintain your reader’s attention.

Using the following techniques and tips can help improve the quality of your blog. If you are uncertain about your content or writing style, try working collaboratively with a colleague who is willing to check your material before posting.

Editorial Processes

Most blog sites allow you to save and preview your posts before publishing. Using these functions allows you to reflect on the content and review the spelling, grammar and general ‘readability’ of your post before making it live. It also allows you to see how any embedded media such as slides or videos will appear and whether paragraphs and text are spaced correctly.

Writing Style

A good writing style will help maintain your blog reader base. Blogs are known for their short, informal style that allows for quick, easy scanning of content.

It is very important to check your posts for accuracy in spelling and grammar. Unfortunately spell-check is not a function available on all blog writing pages, so it may help to copy and paste your work into a word processing document to help find errors.

If you have a group or collaborative blog, it may help to set out some guidelines on the feel you want posts to have – will they be formal, informal, lengthy, minimalist, will images be included, how will you reference links and so on. You may also wish to agree on how tags are to be used and standardise them.

Policies On Comments

Deciding whether you will open your blog to moderated or un-moderated comments is another issue for consideration. Think about your audience and the scope of your blog to help with this decision.

Minimising spam is another important quality process. Unfortunately all blogs need to be monitored for spam or inappropriate material, and employing a spam-filter such as Akismet [1] is sensible.

Content Quality

Good content is what makes your audience return to your blog or subscribe to your RSS feed to see when updates appear. Setting down quality measures for the content of your blog helps to build a reader community, and has the added benefit of making it an easier transition for new authors wanting to know what you write about on the blog. Do your posts capture current issues or techniques? Are you relating experiences or activities that will benefit a community of users?

Successful blogs are those which capture the reader’s interest. Many blog authors add small pieces of their lives, outside of the blog topic to personalise their content and help readers relate to the author. However you should first establish a policy which determines whether this is acceptable for your blog.

Once you’ve posted your blog post, standard practice is that it remains unchanged, except for minor typographical changes. If changes are significant or needed to clarify a point, good practice dictates that a note or addendum is added to the original post, or the text font is changed to ‘strike-through’.

Make sure your blog posts are marked with the date and time of posting and, on a multi-author blog, the name of the person posting.

Document Your Processes

It may be useful to outline in your blog policies the quality processes through which your blog will be subjected. Not only does this help with consistency in the content and how it’s presented, but it gives your readers an understanding of the processes your material has undergone before release. As an example, see the UK Web Focus’s blog policy [2] . You may also wish to carry out a periodic evaluation of your blog policies to see whether modifications or enhancements may be appropriate.

References

1. Akismet,
   <http://akismet.com/>
2. Blog Policy, UK Web Focus Blog,
   <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/blog-policies/>

Background

This briefing document provides advice on planning processes for setting up your blog.

Getting Started

Before you commit to a blog, you need to be sure that a blog is the right tool for the job. Use the checklist below to see if a blog will work for you.

Blogs are an informal and ‘chatty’ medium

Blogs can be useful for providing a more personal and friendly face to the world but are not necessarily a good way of presenting formal information. You will probably need content that lends itself to a more personal interpretation. A blog is the place to write about how you survived the fire drill, rather than a place to publish the standard issue health and safety rules on fire drills in public places.

Blogs are a dynamic medium

Blogs are designed for readers to comment on the contents of each post, so make sure your material is suitable for this dynamic approach as it is great for getting feedback and ideas, but not so good if comments are really not required. On a library blog, for example, outlining a project for introducing e-books and asking for comments would be fine, but don’t post on something you don’t want public opinions on. A blog will lose credibility if you remove comments or don’t accept reasonable input.

Decide on whether the blog is to be open access or closed access

This can change your view of suitable material. Blogging about plans for implementing a new technology, for example, might not be appropriate for a public blog open to end users. But a closed blog available just to staff within your organisation could be a useful tool for keeping everyone up-to-date with progress.

Is the blog to be about something that requires regular updates?

If you start a blog but find the subject matter isn’t really changing on a regular basis, and you are struggling to find something to post about, then you haven’t got a blog! Before you commit to blogging, sit down and do a list of ten topics for posts on the themes your blog will tackle. If you can’t easily generate this amount of ideas, you haven’t got a bloggable subject.

If the blog is open access, decide on an editorial policy for dealing with comments

There are grades for monitoring comments – from no moderation at all where submitted comments are published without checking to complete authorisation of each comment. Be aware of possible spam postings as well as un-welcome (e.g. rude or abusive) comments and make sure you are in control. If you are promoting an organisation via a blog, be aware that comments are as much a part of the blog as the blogger’s posts. Although you don’t want to stop an exchange of views and thoughts, you do want to make sure you don’t aid in the publication of inappropriate material. A few simple precautions can keep everything running smoothly.

Ongoing Processes

In order to ensure that your blog service is sustainable:

Ensure that you have regular posts on the blog

Plan ahead and consider asking someone to be a guest blogger if you are away or too busy to post regularly for any short period of time.

Consider group blogging with colleagues

This could work for both an internal, project-based blog and also for a public-facing organisation-based blog. Different bloggers can bring a new perspective to a topic and give the readers a different take on your themes. See a library from the point of view of a cataloguer, a web master, inter-library loans. Get an insight into a museum from the perspective of the curators of different collections or view an archive from the inside. Follow progress on different strands of a project via the technical lead, the project manager and the customer liaison contact.

Keep your blog fresh

Don’t forget that the idea of Web 2.0 is to interact and share with your readers, so use the comments section to generate new ideas. Acknowledge the source of your ideas and reference the reader and their comment and you will help your blog community to grow.

Keep an eye on comment spam

Remember that as well as the automated spam that can be clearly identified as spam, there may be comments )e.g. “This is a great post”) which have been generated automatically, in order to provide links back to a commercial blog. This is known as ‘blog comment spamming’.

Share Your Planning Processes

You will not be the only cultural heritage organisation which is considering best practices for providing and maintaining a blog service. A good way of validating your planning processes is to share these with your peers and solicit constructive criticism and feedback.

This document gives ideas for using blogs to enhance services provided by museums.

Blog Can Enhance A Museum’s Image

Museums cannot afford to ignore the community they service. They no longer simply provide a repository of artifacts. Museums need to be seen to serve the community by engaging with the public. Blogs provide an excellent tool for doing this.

Blogs Differ From The Museum’s Web Site

Blogs typically have a different style from the museum’s institutional Web site. They often do not use an institutional tone of voice but are conversational and personal and may consist of many contributors’ voices.

The institution’s Web site is normally accessed for informational purposes, such as factual information about the museum, opening times, access details, etc. Blogs, on the other hand, often provide access to community, which may include museum staff, but also museum visitors and other interested parties. The character of blogs is not necessarily fixed and may evolve depending on the often changing contributors.

Blog posts typically incorporate many links to other blogs, similar interest groups, etc. Such links can also include slide shows, videos on YouTube links, games, and other resources.

Since blogs often have the voice of the enthusiast and encourage discussion and debate they may be more trusted that conventional marketing-focussed Web sites.

Blogs Can Complement The Museum’s Web Site

Blogs can add depth and richness to museums’ descriptions by providing contextual information (“How this exhibition came to be) or a new angle (“Techniques in hanging the new exhibition”).

Blogs can provide an opportunity to get to know the experts (“Day in the life of the education outreach coordinator) or engage with them (“How are works of art lent to other institutions?”). They can build a new audience, often younger (“We would like to see this type of event happening here”).

Blogs can provide new and fresh content on a regular basis (“Charlie Watts seen in the museum looking closely at the Rubens”).

Blogs Are About Communication

Blogs can create a environment of person to person communication by seeking opinions, ideas and feedback and by encouraging the visitors to participate and contribute (“What we think of the new exhibition“) and share experiences (“This series of lectures is great, what do you think?“).

By responding to comments the museum is seen to be listening to its public (“What a good idea to stock this in the shop“). This can help to create an atmosphere of openness and trust.

Problems And Solutions

There can sometimes be opposition from management or colleagues within the organisation. Why is this and what solutions may there be?

Control

The use of social media in a museum’s context is concerned with releasing control and ensuring that knowledge is not only in the hands of the curators. However there are many examples of the public contributing additional and hitherto unknown information about a museum object. The advice: “Just relax and try it!“.

Resources

Maintaining blogs can be seen as a drain on resources, both human and financial. However, a system of regular contributors who post their own articles in a structured schedule only require overseeing. Each deals with their own related comments. The technology can be cheap. Advice on best practices for using blogs (and other Web 2.0 technologies) is available from the UKOLN Web site [1].

Contributions

There may be difficulties in finding contributors within the museum. Look wider – children who use the educational facilities, local artists who come for inspiration, the people who serve in the cafe, Friends, Trustees. This provides a variety of different voices and engages new communities.

References

1. Briefing Documents for Cultural Heritage Organisations, UKOLN,
   <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/documents/>

Acknowledgments

This briefing document was written by Ingrid Beazley, Dulwich Picture Gallery based on a Blogging workshop facilitated by Brian Kelly (UKOLN) and Mike Ellis (Eduserve) at the Museums and the Web 2008 conference.

The briefing document provides suggestions for ways in which blogs can be used to enhance the services provided within libraries.

Blogs Can Help To Communicate With Your Library Users

Librarians have long used a variety of means for getting information about the library out to our communities – newsletters, alerts, emails, posters and flyers and more.

Using a blog offers the opportunity to innovate your communications. Blogging gives you a way to push information out, but also to gather feedback and build a community without having very much technical know-how.

Types of Blogs

Blogs can be personal or professional. They may be private with use internally in an organisation or they may be publicly available – this is controlled by the settings on your blog site.

Blogs can be individual, group or subject blogs. An individual blog is a personal blog reflecting the thoughts of one person. A group blog is a collective effort written by a team or organisation, and a subject blog is written by any number of people, and is focused on a particular topic[1].

Once you have decided on the blog’s purpose think about which of these different approaches will work best for you. You may also like to think about developing a set of blog policies to help outline the blog’s scope, and focus your target audience.

Ideas For Using Blogs

The following provides a few ideas for blogging in your library. This is just a small selection – blogs are very versatile and there are many more practical applications.

News gathering and dissemination:

Blogs provide a useful way for librarians to disseminate small snippets of information to their library users. A subject librarian in an academic library might find it useful to gather database updates, new site and service notices and event information in the one place on a blog.

From the librarian’s desk:

Blogging about your daily work gives your library users an insight into your roles and responsibilities. It helps to provide openness and transparency, whilst informing of library news and events.

Community building:

As librarians we are part of a group of professionals that benefit from the sharing of good practice and experiences. Blogs can be a very timely way to offer advice and commentary on current library issues.

Library resources:

Raise the profile of the resources in your library by blogging about their features. If you have a collection of resources for speakers of other languages, why not invite a few people using these materials to blog about them, and build an online community.

Special projects:

Are you building a new library, refurbishing a new section, or other library developments that are visible to your library community? Blogging about the project will allow your users to engage in the project and become involved in decision making, and photos or videos of progress can add interest to your blog.

Task groups:

Use a blog to capture and collect the thoughts of members involved in a task group. Blogs have built in archive features to record your work and tagging can be used to categorise sections.

Reflective journaling:

Blogs don’t have to be public affairs. Think about your own professional development and chronicle your activities on a blog. It’s amazing how a few minutes spent reflecting on your daily activities adds up so you can see a path of progression and achievements. If appropriate, share these thoughts with your colleagues so they also have a record of your activities.

Getting Started with your Library Blog

Blogs can be as resource and time intensive as you make them. Deciding to use a blog to communicate with your users allows you to be as creative or serious as you like.

There is a wealth of information and advice available especially for librarians wishing to investigate blogging: read other briefing papers, join mailing list such as lis-bloggers [2] or participate in services aimed at the blogging librarian community.

References

1. Blogging and RSS: A Librarian’s Guide. Sauers, M.P. 2006. New Jersey. Information Today
2. lis-bloggers, JISCMail, http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/LIS-BLOGGERS.html>

Acknowledgements

This briefing document was written by Kara Jones, University of Bath.

About This Document

This briefing document provides an introduction to blogs and key blogging tools and concepts.

What Is A Blog?

A blog (a portmanteau of web log) can be simply described as a Web site where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order.

A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.

Providing A Blog

Blogs can be provided in a number of ways. Blog software can be installed locally (open source or licensed), or blogs can be deployed using an externally hosted service (Blogger.com and WordPress.com are popular).

In an organisation or educational institution you may find tools provided by existing systems (e.g. a VLE, a CMS, etc.) which have blog functionality provided. Alternatively, many social networking services (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, etc.) provide blogging or similar functionality.

Reading Blogs

A key strength of blogs is that they can be accessed and read in a number of ways. Blog readers can take the conventional approach and visit the blog Web site using the Web address. New posts on a blog can be read using an RSS reader. These readers can be Web-based (e.g. Bloglines, Google Reader, etc.) or a desktop RSS reader (e.g. Blogbridge). If you read a number of blogs, you may wish to use a blog aggregator, which allows you to view posts from lots of blogs in one place or have subscribe to have blog posts delivered to your email. Blogs can be accessed by using a mobile device such as a PDA or mobile phone.

Blog Features

There are some features which are standard on most blog services:

RSS or Atom Feeds

Feeds are small snippets of XML that allow you to subscribe to a blog and have updates or new posts sent to your desktop automatically. This is useful is you have a number of blogs to keep up with, as you can read a number of feeds in one place using an RSS aggregator or feed reader.

Tags/Categories

Tags are similar to subject-headings or category words given to a post. A blog author can create as many or as few tags as they like. A collection of tags displayed as words of differing sizes is called a tag cloud. Tags may also be called ‘labels’ or ‘categories’.

Blogroll

A blogroll is a list of blogs that the author of the blog has favourited or reads regularly. The links on a blogroll are a great way to find new blogs, often on a similar topic to the blog you are currently viewing.

Comments

Many blogs have a comment function which allows readers to provide feedback on the post. Comments may be moderated by the blog owner and can be configured so that readers may need to be registered or they may be anonymous.

Archive

Most blog sites will automatically archive posts, usually by month. This helps to keep blog pages reasonably short and tidy.

Widgets

Blog sites may display widgets, often in a sidebar, which may provide additional functionality on a blog site.

Finding Blogs

Finding blogs on a particular topic can be a challenge. Try using Technorati [1] or Google Blog Search [2] which are search engines for blogs, or similar blog directories. Many good blogs are found by recommendation, such as inclusion in the blogroll of a topical blog or reviewed in the literature.

References

1. Technoratori, <http://www.technorati.com/>
2. Google Blog Search, <http://blogsearch.google.com/>