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Critical Clicks: Blogging
March 28, 2007

Blogging is a great way to get involved in a social network of other thinkers and writers in a field. In general, this networked space is called the blogosphere while the specific set of library blogs is often referred to as the biblioblogosphere. There are two major parts to a blog - the initial post by the blog author, and then the ensuing conversation in the comments by everyone. It is this facilitated conversation that truly sets blogs apart from other websites.

As a general introduction, blogs are just websites - sure they are a special kind of website that uses blog software to accomplish a specific task...but in the end they are just websites. Nothing to see here, please move along. And while there may be an large number of blogs that deal with what one ate for breakfast or how one felt after being dumped, there are an ever increasing number of professional blogs that are making great use of the tool. Quite conveniently, this is one of those professional blogs. Sure, I could tell you that I had a scrambled egg and a cranberry muffin for breakfast and I felt devastated when my cat abandoned me for my wife's side of the bed last night after I accidentally kicked her (the cat), but my primary focus here is on library technologies.
 
Having a focus on a blog is important. It means you can develop a set of readers who are interested in the topic being discussed. That is critical, because that also means you are developing a set of potential commenters. If you are not comfortable with the idea of being a blogger (there is a time commitment!) then please consider being a blog reader and joining the conversation - it really is just as important as being a blog author!

How do you find blogs now that you are ready to start reading? A great place to look is the blog search engine, Technorati. Another great resource is the blogging libraries wiki which includes links to blogs organized by library type. If you are ready to jump in to blogging itself, two great places to start are Wordpress.com and Blogger.

If you want to practice commenting, check out the previous post and let me know what types of technologies and tools you would like to see reviewed on here.

Posted by Chris Harris on March 28, 2007 | Comments (0)