SLA2005 - blogging about blogging - Monday 11:30

I'm in "Blogging/RSSing the Librarian Way".

It is packed with people.  I'm next to a seat with a bag on it, I have been asked multiple times if the seat is available.  People are sitting in the aisles, on the floor.

Blogging: History

Marie Kaddell
Information Professional Consultant, LexisNexis

Catherine R. Lavallée-Welch
University of South Florida - Lakeland
Englib http://www.englib.info/

UPDATE: Jenny Levine of The Shifted Librarian was also supposed to speak, but she was unable to attend due to personal reasons.

Marie

Trends in Blogging and RSS
31.6 million hosted blogs, 53.4 million by end 2005
66% not updated in 2 months
about a million are abandoned blogs

92.4% of blogs are created by people under 30
bloggers account for less than 2% of the adult population

By blogging, you can belong to a virtual community.

Mention of various types of blogs: CEOs, businesses, newspapers e.g. Le Monde provides blog space for subscribers, professional researchers e.g. Jupiter Research, teachers and students, librarians, etc.

List of sites providing blog hosting.

Discussion of new developments: mobile blogs, phone text/photo, photoblogs, videoblogs, dashlogs linkblogs http://www.dashlog.com/ , knowledge management blogs (klogs), password-protected project logs (plogs).

Podcasts.
Listen to text blogs on your iPod http://www.talkr.com/ .
Social podcasting  http://www.sparkcasting.com/

more about podcasting

going very fast

Blogging Directions
- Tagging, taxonomy, folksonomy
Newsgator is experimenting with folksonomy
LexisNexis is releasing its own taxonomy
Airtight flickr related tag browser
- Social Bookmarking
- Regional and Localized Blogs
- Bridging cultures
- Blog ads
- Blog Search Engines
- Wiki
- Internal Business Blogs and Wikis

Discussion of Blogging Problems

(a brief pause while I change my battery)

talking about RSS now

going very, very fast
many lists upon lists of sites

RSS Trends
- Ecommerce
Amazon's A9
Zoundry
- LexisNexis Publisher
integrated content management blah blah
topics based on LexisNexis SmartIndexing Technology taxonomy
- Feeds on phone
- Feeds on PDA
- Feeds in email
- RSS calendars
- shopping with RSS
www.dealcatcher.com

What's Next
- continual monitoring and delivery
www.knownow.com
- add RSS feeds to your site
- make your own feed
- internal RSS feeds
- meta-feeds

the end

Catherine Lavallée-Welch (she is blogging for the PAM blog)
Blogs and Professional Development [I need to get this handout]

Discussion of accepted professional development activities, then connecting each one to blogging.

Reading Blogs
- helps you keep current - pinpoint the important news in a domain
- information has been pre-processed

Criteria - how do you find good blogs to use for professional development?  much examination of this topic.

Article upcoming about criteria in ?Journal of Library Administration?

There is a book Weblogs and Libraries, L. Clyde, 2004.

Discussion now of publishing your own blog.

Motivations:
- keep up with changes
- keep with with professional reading
- desire to share info
- create a discussion place
- notoriety / professional portfolio

List of examples of good professional development blogs.

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog
http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepw.htm

List of resources for finding blogs
- directories
- search engines
- "evaluation blog": Library Stuff

Conclusion:
- can you get information overload with blogs?
A: Yes.
You cannot read it all - find the right level to answer your needs.
- can blogs be considered reference tools?
A: In some ways yes.
There is a sort of peer-review.
The blog will refer you to other information as well.
- do they have authority?
A: Blogs can build reputation, or a blogger might bring a reputation from other contexts.
With an established blogger, you can consider citing the blog.

there is an article in ?college and research libraries journal?
that says face-to-face and listserv are the most used for getting ideas
secondarily journals and website

- interactivity?
A: blogs are very interactive, led by the blogger