This month’s regular summary of posts on other UKOLN blogs which may be of interest to the cultural heritage community is given below.

SCONUL Access

If you are a researcher who works away from their organisation then SCONUL Access enables staff, students, and research students to borrow material from other libraries. Find out more
Published 25 February 2010

Home working and the Rebound Effect

What is the rebound effect and what is does it have to do with home working and events organisation?
Published 16 February 2010

Moderated Comments? Closed Comments? No Thanks!

How moderation of blog comments can act as a barrier to engagement with readers of a blog.
Published 15 February 2010

Remote Audiences

What is transliteracy and what role do remote audiences play? A guest blog post by Kirsty McGill.
Published 12 February 2010

A Challenge To Linked Data Developers

Can Linked Web developers use DBpedia to answer a query?
Published 12 February 2010

OMG! Is That Me On The Screen?

How should you go about reusing photographs of people in presentations?
Published 10 February 2010

Higher Ambitions, e-learning and remote working

What does the government’s Higher Ambitions paper say about remote and online learning. More on the task force led by Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library.
Published 8 February 2010

H.264 Format Free To End Users Until (At Least) 2016

Will the extension of the licence for use of the H.264 format see this proprietary but well-supported video format become widely deployed on the Web?
Published 4 February 2010

Guide to Mobile Broadband Providers

A look at the mobile broadband providers available from Joe Linford of Broadband Genie
Published 4 February 2010

iPad, Flash, HTML 5 and Standards

Will HTML 5 see the introduction of open video formats for the Web?
Published 3 February 2010

Decommissioning / Mothballing Mailing Lists

What policies should you adopt if you discover the existence of unused JISCMail mailing lists?
Published 1 February 2010

Readers of posts on this blog are free to submit comments.  Comments are published automatically, with no manual approval process required. The decision to permit comments to be published without needing to check the contents was taken in order to minimise barriers for readers wishing to engage in discussions on the blog.

Dangers with this approach includes risks that automated comment spam messages are published or that inappropriate comments are submitted.

The risk that automated spam posts will be published is minimised by the Akismet spam filter which has proved successful in trapping a large number of spam comments.  The automated tool has also helped to minimise the effort needed by the blog administrators in checking submitted comments and choosing whether to delete inappropriate comment or publish legitimate comments.

The risk that inappropriate comments may be submitted has, in reality, not happened to any significant extent, with  the occasional spam comment which Akismet fails to detect being spotted and deleted normally in a few hours after publication. We also are aware that readers of this blog are capable of spotting spam comments for themselves, so we do not feel there is a risk to our reputation if this happens.

However although our policy on unmoderated comments is appropriate for this blog, this may not be the case for all blogs.  If you blog service does not have an automated comment spam filter, then moderation may be needed in order to avoid your blog becoming filled with spam comments, thereby probably inhibiting legitimate readers from submitting their own comments.

If you run a very popular blog, or your blog covers newsworthy topics (e.g. global warming) you could possibly find that management of blog comments becomes time-consuming.

In order to assist blog owners in formulating their policies i n this area  a UKOLN briefing document on Policies On Blog Comments has been published, based on feedback received on a recent UK Web Focus blog post.

We hope this document is useful for those of you who are involving in providing blog services to your user communities.

We have now published 100 posts on UKOLN’s Cultural Heritage blog since it was launched in January 2009.  The aim of the blog was to enable UKOLN’s Cultural Heritage support team (myself, Marieke Guy and Ann Chapman) to have a mechanism for speedy publication of resources relevant to the cultural heritage sector.  The blog also provides the team with a valuable opportunity to gain experiences of various issues related to providing and sustaining a blog service,  which will inform our various workshops and briefing documents.

For those who may be new to the blog a summary of the approaches taken and highlights of  the various posts is given below.

Guest Blog Posts

We publish guest blog posts from practitioners in the cultural heritage sector.  These include a post on The Black Art of Blogging (which reported on the impact of a UKOLN workshop on blogging), a summary of Brighton Museum & Art Gallery’s The ‘On the Pull’ Project (which featured as a case study at one of the UKOLN’s Social Web workshops), another case study presented at a UKOLN workshop entitled When Peregrines Come To Town, a post  by Nick Poole, Chief Executive of the Collections Trust (which described Collections Trust’s Digital Programmes on the OpenCulture Blog), a post by Margaret Adolphus, a journalist specialising in librarianship, the knowledge industry on Dull Library Web Sites and, most recently a post by Nicola McNee on Communicating with the Facebook generation.

Blog Posts Related To Peer-Reviewed Papers

Blog posts by UKOLN staff have provided access to papers and accompanying slides for peer-reviewed papers including papers on  Empowering Users and Institutions: A Risks and Opportunities Framework for Exploiting the Social Web (presented at the Cultural Heritage Online 2009 Conference) and a post on Clouds, Libraries and Museums (which described a workshop session based on a paper entitled “Software as a Service and Open APIs” written by Paul Walk).

Blog Posts on UKOLN Presentations

Blog posts have also provided an opportunity to report on talks given at a range of events throughout the country including the AIM 2009 conference, the CILIP-S and CILIP Wales conferences, the “Archives 2.0: Shifting Dialogues between Users and Archivists” conference, the MCG Spring Meeting and the Silos of the LAMS CILIP Executive briefing.

Blog Posts on Addressing Institutional Barriers

A recurring theme at the Social Web workshops we deliver are the institutional barriers to the exploitation of Social Web services in libraries, museums and archives. A number of the posts we have published have looked ways of addressing such barriers. In order to provide ease-of-access to the such posts we have created an addressing barriers category which groups these posts together.

Links To Other UKOLN Blogs

We have provided a monthly summary of posts published on other UKOLN blogs which may be of interest to the cultural heritage sector. For example, see the summaries for January 2010, December 2009 and November 2009.

Multimedia Posts

A number of the blog posts contains embedded multimedia resources, such as slides or videos, typically taken during presentations by UK staff. We hope that this use of multimedia and the provision of access to the resources used at our presentations will help to enhance the impact of the ideas given in the presentations.

We hope our readers have found the 100 blog posts of interest and value. If you have any comments on the blog or ideas for future posts we would welcome them.

This month’s regular summary of posts on other UKOLN blogs which may be of interest to the cultural heritage community is given below.

Begin with the End in Mind

Some suggestions on how to write for different audiences.
Published 27 January 2010

The big fight: Mobile vs PC

Can the mobile Web ever be better than the PC Web or are they just different?
Published 25 January 2010

STRIDE E-Learning Handbook

The STRIDE E-learning handbook is available as a free PDF download.
Published 25 January 2010

My Significant Drop in Use of JISCMail Lists

In some sectors JISCMail may no longer be a significant tool for collaboration and information exchange.
Published 22 January 2010

Save £1million and Move to the Cloud?

We are starting to see a move to use of core services to hosting in ‘the Cloud’. Can this save money?
Published 20 January 2010

Twitter: Part of the Plumbing

Twitter is now becoming a key part of an institution’s information’s infrastructure. So you’ll need policies and procedures.
Published 19 January 2010

Time For A Blog Revival?

For from being in decline, blogs can provide a valuable dissemination and engagement tool – and UKOLN’s briefing documents can be a valuable resource.
Published 16 January 2010

Reflections on CETIS’s “Future of Interoperability Standards” Meeting

A report on a meeting which explored the limitations of elearning standards.
Published 14 January 2010

Retro email list takes new direction

The Retro JISCMail list  has been revived and is now focusing on the need for a national strategy for retro-cataloguing.
Published 12 January 2010

How I Use Creative Commons For My Presentations

A case study on a risk management approach to use of Creative Commons.
Published 13 January 2010

Will The SVG Standard Come Back to Life?

Open standards sometimes may take a long time before they become support by software vendors.
Published 11 January 2010

Greening Events

Possible ways that we can start to reduce the environmental impact of the events we run.
Published 11 January 2010

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

A summary of how institutions are beginning to make use of Twitter to provide alerts.
Published 7 January 2010

An Opportunities and Risks Framework For Standards

Open standards promise much – but sometimes they may fail to live up to their promise. This post describes an opportunities and risks framework  to assist in the selection of standards.
Published 6 January 2010

My Decade

Marieke Guy gives her thoughts on some of the significant IT developments of the decade.
Published 4 January 2010

This month’s regular summary of posts on other UKOLN blogs which may be of interest to the cultural heritage community is given below.

Can Your Blog Survive Without Twitter?

As Twitter now appears to have a significant role in driving traffic to blogs the question is “Can your blog thrive if Twitter is not part of your dissemination strategy?“.
Published 9 December 2009

The Dos and Don’t of Corporate Use of Twitter

Twitter is now mainstream – but there are dangers that organisations jumping on the bandwagon will fail to appreciate what it is that makes twitter so successful.
Published 8 December 2009

A Tale of Three Conferences

Three conference took place in London in the first week of December, all of relevance to the cultural heritage sector. And you could join in the discussions for all three events if you followed the events’ hashtags.
Published 7 December 2009

Highlights of Online Information 2009: Semantic Web and Social Web

The Semantic Web (and Linked Data) should now be considered by early mainstream adopters, whilst the Social Web is now mainstream for all.
Published 4 December 2009

Online 2009: Remote Working in a 2.0 World

Details of the remote working presentation given as part of the show floor seminar programme and a general overview of Online Information 2009.
Published 2 December 2009

This month’s regular summary of posts on other UKOLN blogs which may be of interest to the cultural heritage community is given below.

Earlier Today I Gave A Talk In Australia

How recording talks can allow them to be reused – which can also help to avoid making trips around the world.
Published 24 November 2009

Time To Experiment With Dbpedia?

Dbpedia is a ‘Linked Data’ version of Wikipedia – which may provide a testbed for experimentation
Published 19 November 2009

Topsy – and Who is Tweeting About You

A description of the Topsy service which can provide information on Twitter posts to your Web services.
Published 13 November 2009

“Web 2.0 Will Change Everything!” But How?

A post looking at the ways in which Web 2.0 might change things.
Published 9 November 2009.

Policies on Drugs, Open Standards and Web Accessibility

A look at a draft EU document on Web accessibility.

Published 2 November 2009.

UKOLN is currently running a one-day Introduction to Web 2.0 and the Social Web Workshop in various locations around the country. I attended the one in Devizes recently where the issue of public libraries Web site design came up and the constraints that can be imposed by IT services and council policy. Discussion focused on what the actual barriers were and how they could be overcome.

One solution is to create a presence outside the council Web space that allows more creativity in presentation and content and is out where the potential audience is. That means looking at using blogs, microblogging services like Twitter, social networking sites and picture and video sharing services such as Flickr and YouTube.

So it was good the other day to see the launch message for a new blog for Newcastle Libraries which will host podcasts, news, events information and staff blogs. There’s a local studies picture gallery on Flickr and some videos on YouTube about memories of life in Newcastle collected as part of a recent project. Definitely worth a look for inspiration if you’re considering doing this sort of thing.

You can also follow @ToonLibraries on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NewcastleLibraries.

If you want more information on how they did this, then contact Jennifer Clark, the eLibraries Support Officer at Newcastle Libraries at: jen.clark@newcastle.gov.uk

This month’s regular summary of posts on other UKOLN blogs which may be of interest to the cultural heritage community is given below.

Tweetboard: Adding Twitter To Web Pages

Thinking about using Twitter to support an amplified event? The Tweetboard service may provide an interface suitable for new Twitter users.
Published 24 September 2009

Reflections on Web Adaptability and Techshare 2009

A summary of a talk on “From Web Accessibility to Web Adaptability” given at the RNIB’s Techshare 2009 conference.
Published 23 September 2009

What! No Event Hashtag?

A post on why it is important that ‘amplified events’ provide a timely hashtag.
Published 20 September 2009

Next Generation Wifi Here We Go!

A post looking at the approval of 802.11n WiFi technology.
Published 15 September 2009.

I Want it Now: The Real Time Web

A post on what the real time Web is and what it’s significance will be for those of us working in the information sector.

Published 8 September 2009.

This month’s regular summary of posts on other UKOLN blogs which may be of interest to the cultural heritage community is given below.

Sharing Screens with Screenjelly

Have you ever wanted to quickly share your screen with others. Screenjelly offers you a free way to do it. This post also considers other screencast software currently available.
Published 28 August 2009

Netskills Web2practice

Netskills are now offering a series of Guides to emergent technologies and innovative practice entitled Web2practice.
Published 26 August 2009

The Live Video Streaming Of IWMW 2009

A review of the live video streaming at UKOLN’s IWMW 2009 event.
Published 17 August 2009

Paper on “Library 2.0: Balancing the Risks and Benefits to Maximise the Dividends” Published in Program

A summary of a paper on Library 2.0 published in the Program journal.
Published 11 August 2009

Splendid Streaming at IWMW

A look at the approach taken to streaming the plenary talks at the Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW) held at Essex University.
Published 10 August 2009

Evidence on Use of Twitter for Live Blogging

This post summarises how twitter was used at UKOLN’s IWMW 2009 event.
Published 4 August 2009

Whenever there’s some slack in the schedules, TV broadcasters seem to have a habit of filling it up with the ‘top 100 xxx xxx’. For xxx xxx, insert war films, comedy films, action heroes, leading ladies, romantic moments, etc. it always seems to me to be a cheap filler programme. Do a quick survey, get hold of some film clips, have a few ‘celebrities’ do some soundbites, and you can fill an hour or two.

Well back in April 2009, there was a blog post on Top 50 Librarian Blogs.

The colleague who alerted me to this noted that all of the blogs listed were published by librarians in the US and wondered whether we should be doing our own list of top UK librarian blogs. Further, she wondered, if we did, who would we be putting at the top and why?

For example, how would we be rating them? I guess they’d need to be posting regularly – large time gaps between posts would not encourage people to revisit or add the blog to their blog reader. They’d need to be posting about relevant issues – more than a semi-official institutional news blog. And then, since there the blogosphere is undergoing a population explosion, I think people would be looking for that extra special factor – the specialist (working on an unusual archive), the experimenter (a public librarian supporting the housebound), the newshound/reviewer (finding the latest thing out there in Web 2.0 and giving it a go).

Should we be doing this for the Cultural Heritage Web site? Well, in a sense we’ve already been doing that ever since we set up the site. For example, there’s the Best Of section – which includes ‘best of blogs‘. Here we’ve listed exemplars of blogs – each with a different focus.

Then we also have a Blogs Directory, which lists a variety of blogs from the cultural heritage sector. We haven’t attempted to list every blog around but just those which focus primarily on aspects of digital technology. So, useful though they are to their institutions, we’re not listing straightforward news blogs in the directory itself.

And as well as main list of the directory, there is also an examples section. Here we have grouped together sets of blogs set up for specific purposes. For instance, a library might want to support its reading group(s) with a blog – so we’ve identified existing blogs set up for this. We’ve got another cluster where the blogs are for artists in residence at a museum or gallery – giving them a blog is a great way of publicising this in between actual events involving the artist and making contact with the public. And we have put together two clusters of news blogs, so if you’re thinking of doing this, take a look at these.

So, do we need a top 50 UK librarian blog list? (Or indeed, a top 50 Museum workers blog list or top 50 archivists blog list.) And who would you nominate to be on it?