The Blogging Realm and Libraries

Work Meets Play

I now have a legit reason to blog. On Blogger. My library branch is starting its own blog. I'm building it on Blogger and as soon as I get the password to ftp it to our library system's server, I'll be able to publish it. Whoohoo! I am so jazzed. This is the first time all my playing online has translated into helping me at work. And I owe it all to the World Wide Web.

First, it was the website. Though it uses Cold Fusion, which I have no experience with, I picked things up well enough once I started learning DreamWeaver for my own site. Even though DW isn't a Cold Fusion program, it taught me enough about how websites work that I could figure things out or at least figure out what the instructions were saying. Until then, I had no clue what to do and the instructions from our webmistress made no sense to me. Now, it's all so easy. And now, when I ask her questions, I know what I'm asking. I can say more than "Help!" and she knows what I'm talking about.

Second, it was message boards. Last week, we started posting in the forums on our library website and hope to get folks talking about books and library service. Because I've been on message boards for 8 1/2 years, I easily figured out the user interface. I just need to learn the ins and outs of the administrator functions.

Third, the new blog. Lots of libraries have them, but ours will be the first for our libary system. Our webmistress will help me fix the template to match other pages on our webpages, but again, I'll know what she's talking about and will be able to make my own changes. I am very comfortable working in Blogger.

So, how cool is all that? (insert big grin here)

Linkage

Appropos of the above, Blogwithoutlibrary.net.
They have a very nice slide show presentation online on blogging basics. Even though it's geared for libraries, it's rather interesting for non-library bloggers or folks who are new to the blog experience.

Also, from the list in the presentation, another free blogging service: Pitas.com.
More blogging info is on Weblogs Compendium.

Found on Chaos Theory, among others:

The Hook Project or how books can grab readers.

Saw this link on a blog, but I forgot which one:

The Library of Unwritten Books.


A Librarian's Lament, in Haiku

Found on Borg Librarians by tinylittlelibrarian.

"An Urban Library"

Readers are so rare
We deal in porn and movies
Librarians weep.

Kind of makes me wish I was good at haiku, so I could come up with an appropriate answer.