To Blog, or not to Blog

1
To Blog, or not to Blog?

• That is the question.

2
What is a Blog?

• Web Publication
• Short entries
• Reverse-chronological order

3
A Blogging Timeline

• 1993 Birth of the web
• 1997-ish Web Scripting
• 1998-99 small communities form
• 1999 First free, web-based blogs
• 2003 Year of the blog

4
Typical Uses of Blogs

• Collect and present cool/useful links
• http//archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/D
  ocs/whats-new.html
• Discuss and disseminate ideas
• http//blog.jackvinson.com/archives/21_cfr_part_11
  .html
• Disseminate current news
• http//cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/

5
Typical Uses of Blogs

• Socializing/Ranting/Exhibitionism
• http//www.aaronwall.com/

6
Two areas of greatest social impact

• Journalism
• Politics

7
Journalism

• First-person perspectives
• http//www.aapavatar.net/blogs.htm
• The citizen journalist
• Rathergate

8
Politics

• Candidate blogs
• http//deancalltoaction.blogspot.com/
• Senatorial and other public figure blogs
• http//www.johnkerry.com/
• Political news/commentary blogs
• http//www.politics1.com/
• The Trent Lott scandal

9
Blogs in Education and Libraries

• Uses for Libraries
• Uses for instructors
• Uses for Students

10
Uses for Libraries

• Current news (replace the print publications)
• Community-building, communication
• http//www.aadl.org/
• Discipline specific resources and news
• http//bloggery.wlu.edu/math
• Staying informed
• http//www.edtechpost.ca/mt/

11
Uses for Instructors

• Record of the course
• Communicate with scholars
• Annotated links
• More!

12
Student Uses

• Documenting work
• Writing or reflective assignments
• Recreation
• Portfolios
• Marketing
• And more!

13
Where to begin?

• Read blogs in areas of interest
• Use them on subject pages
• Library News blog
• Friends and Contributors blog
• Subject-specific blogs

14
We will need

• A stable, fully functioning blogging system (this
  is my problem)
• Someone to administrate the system (also me)
• Interesting or useful content (this is where you
  all come in)
• A promotion plan (all of us)
• RSS

15
RSSthe Missing Link
16
What is RSS?

• RSS is a standard for allowing content to be
  syndicated to newsreaders and other websites. It
  allows content to be created in one place, but
  disseminated and published to many.

17
What is syndication?

• Created in one place
• Disseminated widely
• Subscription Model
• Same content published as part of many different
  publications
• Example The Associated Press

18
How does it work?
Created by Hand coding Program Other?
Aggregator/ Newsreader
RSS Feed
XML file, sitting on webserver
Interprets the code, displays the content
19
Aggregators everywhere

• Web-Based
• http//www.bloglines.com
• Integrated (Sage)
• http//sage.mozdev.org/
• Free-standing (Aggreg8)
• http//www.aggreg8.net/

20
Finding and subscribing to feeds

• The Aggregator
• http//www.bloglines.com
• The Feed
• http//blogs.fletcher.tufts.edu/rss4lib/
• blog2.htm

21
RSS and blogs

• Short article format perfect for syndication
• RSS extends reach of blog
• Blogging software can auto-create the feed

22
Potential uses

• The Catalog
• RSS feed notices for holds
• RSS reminders for overdues
• RSS feeds of new books
• Innovative software slated to contain RSS
  capability in release 2006 (next release)

23
Potential Uses

• General Library
• RSS feeds of all our library blogs
• RSS feeds for new databases/resources (by
  subject)
• RSS feeds of journal contents-linkback to
  full-text using web-bridge
• http//public.csusm.edu/dwalker/rss.htm

24
Potential uses

• Import feeds into static web pages
• subject pages
• http//library.wlu.edu/science/compsci.html
• Use blogs as back-end system for other web pages
• Announcements for Friends of Library
• News on the library frontpage
• Hours, openings and closings
• http//library.wlu.edu/about/friends/events.asp

25
Potential Uses

• Campus
• Liquidmatrix CMS software
• Portal software

26
Some live examples of RSS and Blogs

• http//bloggery.wlu.edu/math/
• http//www.georgetown.edu/home/rss.html
• http//library.wlu.edu/about/friends/events.asp
• http//bloggery.wlu.edu/friends
• http//library.wlu.edu/science/compsci.html