Jump on the Blogwagon
Online journals offer librarians an opportunity to strut their stuff
Rick Margolis News and Features Editor -- School Library Journal, 8/1/2005
Rosie O'Donnell is doing it. So are Barry Bonds, William Shatner, Walter Cronkite, and Bob Lutz, vice chairman of General Motors. Even Time, Newsweek, and School Library Journal are doing it. They're blogging.
They're what? That's the question the technopeasant in me once asked. I found the answer. A blog, or Weblog, is an interactive online journal. It's like having your own personal Web site—with two distinct advantages. Blogs are easier to create than ordinary Web sites, and since blogs are a cinch to use (simply enter a message and the software does the rest), they're perfect for encouraging lively dialogues.
According to Technorati, a company that monitors blogs, a new one is born every 7.4 seconds—that's roughly 12,000 new blogs a day. As a result, the community of bloggers is doubling in size once every five months. Last month, Technorati tracked 13.5 million blogs, more than twice the total identified just 10 months earlier. There are no dollar signs in front of those figures, but it's unlikely even Donald Trump (www.theapprenticeblog.com) would dismiss them.
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I had no idea this vast world existed until last week. Just call me Rick Van Winkle. Oh, I knew about SLJ's leadership blog (www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/620000062.html) and the many bloggers who visit it to exchange views on education's greatest challenges. But who would have guessed that there were blogs for devotees of fine cheeses, Norwegian trip-hop, Appalachian wildflowers, and Farsi.
It doesn't take an Einstein to see why blogs are so popular. Blogs put us in touch with those who share our passions, problems, and sensibilities, as well as our need for unvarnished information. They promote a sense of belonging, and they're excellent teaching tools. As our cover story reveals (“Blogomania!” pp. 36–39), librarians like Patrick Delaney of San Francisco's Galileo Academy of Science and Technology are doing wondrous things with blogs. In fact, Galileo's Li-Blog-ary (www.galileoweb.org/liblogary), a cluster of blogs that is run by Delaney and a pack of student helpers called SLAC-ers (Student Library Advisory Committee), has made the library an indispensable resource for students, parents, and teachers.
Yet so far most library media specialists have been slow to embrace blogs. An April 2005 survey by blogwithoutalibrary.net, an online resource that keeps tabs on what libraries are doing with technology, identified only 245 libraries with blogs, only a dozen of them school libraries.
Are library media specialists missing an opportunity to broaden their audience? I'd say they are. But something else is also at stake here. In a world that is often unaware of librarians' contributions to education, media specialists need to make sure parents, teachers, administrators, and the general public realize they're essential. Gary Price, a library consultant who runs a blog called ResourceShelf, sees blogs as a marketing tool that librarians can use to make people aware of all the wonderful services they provide. “Librarians need to toot their own horns,” Price says. A library blog could help them do that.
It's ironic that a Luddite like me would be urging librarians to jump on the blogwagon, but that's exactly what I'm recommending. School librarians need to be technology leaders for the sake of the children and the communities they work with—and for their own sakes.
