Questions?

This blog will remain on the SEMLS web site, so feel free to check back if you need a refresher. The URL is www.semls.org/kathy/semlsisblogging.html. Feel free to post comments if you have any more observations or questions. I have enabled e-mail notification of comments, so I will see your message and will respond.

As always, you can contact me via e-mail at klussier@semls.org, via phone at 508-923-3531, or via IM at semlskathy (AOL, Yahoo) or at klussier@semls.org(MSN) if you have any questions.

Thanks for participating in this workshop. I look forward to seeing you blogs!

Make the most out of RSS

RSS is not only important for publicizing your blog. You can also use it to keep up on the news as well as professional information. To start, you need to use a RSS reader. Two web-based readers are My Yahoo and Bloglines. You can also download a reader to your local computer. Some popular readers are Pluck, SharpReader, and Newzcrawler.

The idea behind RSS is getting the news you want the way you want when you want. If you don't like the way your RSS reader displays information, keep looking around until you find one you like.

To start, think of a web page you visit on a regular basis to get your news (boston.com, nytimes.com). Now look at the page and try to find an RSS link or an orange Subscribe button. Add this feed to your feed reader. Go to your reader on a regular basis instead of the web page. Now, add a couple more feeds to the reader. When you go to this reader, you will get news from a number of sites instead of the one that you usually get news from. Here are some good feeds to try:

LISNews - http://www.lisnews.com/rss.shtml - a number of feeds to keep you up to date on the library profession.

American Libraries Online - http://www.ala.org/cfapps/xml/alonline.xml - Feed for articles in American Libraries.

The SLJ Blog - http://www.ala.org/cfapps/xml/alonline.xml - Get the buzz about libraries, learning and technology.

Will Richardson's weblogg-ed - http://www.weblogg-ed.com/xml/rss.xml - a great blog about using blogs in the classroom.

Massachusetts Performers & Programs Directory - http://feeds.feedburner.com/massperform - Find out when new performers are added to the directory.

MBLC Job vacancies - http://mblc.state.ma.us/cgi-bin/mpv/rss.pl - Be notified of new job openings across the state.

Library Elf - www.libraryelf.com - Notifies you when your books are due and when your holds are available.

RSS

Now let's talk about RSS - Really Simple Syndication. RSS is often talked about in conjunction with blogs because blogging software almost always creates an RSS feed for you. Blogger actually uses what is called an Atom feed. Follow a three-set process to make the most out of feeds with your blog.

1. To set up the feed, go to your settings and click on the Site Feed link. Select "Yes" in the "Publish Site Feed" box. If you are using a blogspot URL, Blogger will automatically assigned a site feed URL for you. If you are publishing your blog, you will need to choose a directory on your server and a file name (I usually use atom.xml) as your site feed. Blogger Help File on Site Feeds.
2. In your sidebar, you will need to post a link to your feed in your quick links area. Simply point the link to the URL contained in the Site Feed settings area.
3. Atom cannot be read by all RSS readers. To ensure maximum usability, use Feedburner (www.feedburner.com) to create a feed that can be read by different types of readers. This service will also provide statistics on how much your feed is being used.
   

Let's see what other libraries do with their blogs

Hanson Public Library - http://hansonplinfo.blog-city.com/
Darien Library blogs - http://www.darienlibrary.org/blogs.php
Urbana Free Library Construction Update - http://urbanafreelibrary.org/bldgblog.html
Ann Arbor District Library - http://www.aadl.org/
Galileo Academy of Science and Technology Li-Blog-Ary - http://www.galileoweb.org/galileolibrary/
Hunterdon Central High School - http://central.hcrhs.k12.nj.us/imc
Mabry Middle School - http://mabryonline.org/blogs/media/
Dutch Fork Middle School - http://nlcommunities.com/communities/mshaddon/


What do you think? Was there anything that caught your attention that you really liked? Are there ways these libraries could have improved these blogs? Would you like to take any of these features into your own blogs?

Cool blogging tools

Try some of these cool tools to enhance your blog.

Audioblogger (http://audioblogger.com) is an easy way to post audio files to your blog. Dial a phone number and, after following the instructions, you just say the message that you want to be posted on to your blog. It will be posted within a few minutes of your phone call.

The Google toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com) is great for a number of reasons, but can help your blogging experience as well. See a web page that you want to post to your blog? Just click on the "Blog This" button on the Toolbar, and you will be brought to the Blogger editing screen with a link to the web page already typed in.

Tweaking your blog

Here are some settings you may want to tweak in your blog.

FTP Settings - Instead of using http://yourblog.blogspot.com as the URL, you can post the blog to your library's web site. If you can get the FTP settings for your web site, add them to the Publishing Settings sections. The blog will then be automatically published to your own web site every time you add a post.

Sidebar Content - The sidebar is a great place to add permanent content to your blog. This is where your profile displays and where you can post links to other web sites. You can also post the URL for your RSS feed in the sidebar area. However, to edit sidebar content, you need to go into the HTML code for the template. It's not as hard as it sounds.

Click on the Template tab and then look at your HTML code. Most of the code at the top is just style information. If you go about halfway through the code, you'll start to see the content. Look for code that says

<!-- Begin #sidebar

The sidebar content follows this comment tag. If you don't want your profile to display, you can remove all of the code that starts with "Begin profile container" and ends with "end profile."If your template comes with quick links, you can find the code to edit these links. If your template does not come with quick links, follow these instructions to add these links to the sidebar.

Links at bottom of posts on main page - There are two links at the bottom of each post on the main page. For both links, the text that is linked is not very helpful. The timestamp is actually linked to the permalink for the posting. The number of comments link is also the link that needs to be used if someone wants to post a comment. You can edit the text in these areas by going into the HTML code and finding the

<!-- Begin #main comment tag.

Let's start blogging!

To create our blog today, we will be using Blogger, a free hosted blogging service owned by Google.

Some other free hosted services include:

Blog-city - http://www.blog-city.com - some features require a paid subscription, but it's only $35 per year and well worth it if it is a feature you really want.

Live Journal - http://www.livejournal.com - this site is typically used for personal journals.

WordPress - http://www.wordpress.org

For more robust blogging, you can try these blogging tools that cost money:

Movabletype - http://www.movabletype.org is blogging software that can be installed on your web server.

Typepad - http://www.typepad.com - if you like Movable Type, but do not have your own server, you can use this hosted service, which uses Movable Type software.

Radio Userland - http://radio.userland.com - another option for installing software on your own web server.

Why blog?

First of all - don't create a blog just because you want a blog. A blog will not be successful it does not have a purpose with content that patrons and students will find useful.

Having said that, there are several reasons why your library may want to use a blog:

• It's an easy way to update content on your web site.
• It gives patrons and students an opportunity to interact with your web site. Members of a book discussion group can post their comments to your blog. Patrons can give you feedback on library services.
• Team blogs are an easy way to collaborate on a particular project online.
• You can highlight new services and resources.

As we go through this session and look at some library blogs, you may think of other reasons to use a blog in your library. Feel free to post these ideas here.

What is a blog?

Blog is an abbreviation for weblogs. This name comes from the fact that early blogs were literally logs or diaries written online. However, this name is misleading since blogs have grown to be much more than diaries. Essentially, blogs web sites that are:

• Listed chronologically with all written content dated and timestamped;
• Easily created with a web-based form;
• Archived.

Standard features of a blog include:

• Comments;
• Permalinks, i.e. each posting has its own page to which anyone can link;
• Categories that a post can be labeled with;
• RSS feeds;
• Trackback, i.e. see who is linking to your posts

Types of blogs you will see:

• Diaries
• News
• Political
• Professional
• Collaborative
• Educational
  

Good morning

Welcome to the SEMLS Blogging & RSS for libraries class. I'm thrilled to be able to tell you a little about blogging today and how you can use it in your libraries.

My goals for today are to:

* Tell you what a blog is and show you different types of blogs that are available.
* Show you how to create a blog in five minutes (yes, that's all it takes.)
* Look at different ways librarians are using blogs to support their services, to disseminate information, and to collaboarate with patrons/students and each other.
* Explore what RSS feeds are and how you can not only create them easily with your blog, but how you can use them to keep up with news.

I would like to hear what your interest is in blogging. Are you considering it for your library? Are you just interested in learning about the communication tools that your patrons may already be using? Do you see any barriers to using blogs in your library?