It’s a Blogs World and We Just Live in It.

A blog is a website consisting of individual posts organized chronologically, usually with the most recent at the top. You likely know this already because you’re here, right now, looking at a blog. Perhaps you’ve even added me to your RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed so you get quick, easy to see updates on what I’ve posted. Blogs have become so ubiquitous so quickly that most of us don’t question their place in our lives.

Blogs are one of the best examples of the radical democratization found on the web. With professional looking, easy to use, and, (above all) cheap blogging programs anyone who wants to express their thoughts can build their own soapbox. And, with the aforementioned RSS, keeping on top of a great number of blogs is simple and requires little effort.

I recently saw this expressed in a new way: the distance between personal ideas and public expression has shortened to a mere sliver. The editorial process, that time consuming and (often) cumbersome search for accuracy and truth, does not need to exist in blogs. If you want to say something, it takes you only as long as typing it up and hitting “publish.”

Blogs can be of great use to a library, but they can also be handled poorly and become another time-suck in an already busy job.

Blogs are a great way to keep in touch with patrons who rarely, if ever, darken a library door. Events, services, new acquisitions, all these can be advertised or even provided on a blog. But libraries need to remember what makes blogs special in the first place, the personal.

The most successful blogs have a strong personality. They don’t need to be the best written, most important, or most in depth. They are the ones with a unique and genuine voice. Library blogs should embrace this.

Library folk are good, weird people with interesting ideas and life experiences. A blog should showcase those voices. Let the people who work at the library come up with their own ideas of what they’d like to blog about. Steampunk book reviews? Birdhouse criticism? How to write a proper resume? If a library staff has a passion, make room for it on the blog.

Now, there are considerations within the context of a public institution like a library. One is audience. If you do not have patrons interested in the “Top 20 Bird Houses of Massachusetts” then there is probably a better use of staff time. Appropriateness must also be considered. Can’t have some huge 50 Shades fan clogging up your grade preschoolers library blog with fan fiction.

Two blogs I’ve recently started reading that do this well are the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) the Library of Congress (LOC). What makes them great reads is similar: they provide easy access points to their collections. Both NFB and LOC have huge, daunting collections that hold a wealth of treasures. The blogs spotlight interesting pieces and provide a path for further investigation. The NFB blog is particularly focused on the unusual and unique films that are available for free streaming. It’s a great collection brought into focus by a well-run and engaging blog.