Exercise 2

tag=Exercise2

1. In the Library With the Lead Pipe, winner of the best blog title I've seen recently, reads like a journal or magazine. Its articles even come complete with reference sections. 2 of the 3 posts also include a small heading titled "In Brief," which summarizes the salient points of the post. Presumably, this will save time for overworked library professionals. Indeed, the posts are lengthy by blog standards. The most recent post, "Running the Library Race" is a dozen paragraphs long and lists 15 references. It's a well written, highly readable piece about the need for work pacing. But whereas many blog posts seem to assume their reader has only a few minutes or seconds to spare, this post requires a dedicated 10 minutes to read. That may not be terribly long to most people, but if you are trying to keep pace with a dozen blogs, a handful of journals, do a full day's work, and have a life after work, it can add up quickly.

The blog's focus is pretty broad. It appears to write toward all types of libraries. Clearly, then the actual posts will necessarily have a more general appeal. "Running the Library Race," for instance is general enough that if one removed the occasional references to libraries and inserted references to teaching or video game design or farming, the article would still feel relevant. In other words the issues at play in the post aren't strictly tied to one type of library, and aren't even strictly tied to library work, but would speak to anyone working in a busy profession.

To get the magazine feel, In the Library with the Lead Pipe has 6 permanent authors and several guest authors. They appear to post only once every couple of weeks. This means that the lengthy posts are more understandable. They aren't filling RSS feeds with dozens of long articles a day (as blogs like Boing Boing or io9 do).
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2. The Librarian's Commute, in contrast, is written by a single author: Olivia Nellums. She works in a community college library in New Jersey. Nellums posts roughly once a week, and her posts tend to run between 2 to 5 paragraphs. Her posts tend to ruminate more than In the Library with the Lead Pipe, and they tend to be more open ended. Instead of relaying a thesis, Nellums seems to offer commentary that implicitly or sometimes explicitly questions the reader.

Her blog feels at once more ephemeral than posts from In the Library..., but also more conversational -- and thus more community oriented. What In the Library gains in journalistic glossiness, it loses in dyadic conversationalism.

In her most recent post, Nellums ponders the notion that a community college library ought to have on hand most of the textbooks the teachers are currently using (a notion that rings true for anyone who's been affiliated with community college; text books are expensive and community college students are often on a tight budget, so lack of access to books can cause a huge learning gap). Here are her last two paragraphs, which offer a particularly conversational tone:

But this is radical, no? To spend what would amount to thousands of dollars on resources that often become obsolete within a year, and in the best (history, English) cases might last for 10? On the other hand, didn't we used to do that with a print reference collection?

I would fight harder for this, but textbooks seems to be moving online anyway. Meanwhile, the textbooks we do have on reserve are flying on and off the shelves.

Nellums literally asks questions of her audience, asking us to think about the issue as much as she has. And ultimately she doesn't provide a clean answer -- this is where the posts feel the most ephemeral. Her last two sentences, while not dismissive of the topic, are certainly not conclusive.

Where In the Library is for a general audience, Nellums often speaks pretty clearly for community colleges.
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3. Like the Librarian's Commute, The Distant Librarian, is the work of a lone blogger. This blogger writes from Canada and many of the issues he writes about are Canada-centric. For instance, his more recent blog post was about the Calagary mini-maker faire. This suggests that he is interested in hackerspaces and the maker movement -- a rather innovative movement that some libraries are taking part in by setting up hack spaces or maker labs. As with Librarian's Commute, Distant Librarian's post are rather short and the blog is updated every other week or so. As the blog's name and most recent blog post suggests, Distant Librarian is interested in the Internet and new media. The author has posted on social networking, distance learning, and the 6th Canadian Learning Commons Conference.

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4. At least in the most recent posts, Librarian by Day is interested in digital literacy.   In her most recent post, On Remixing and Resharing Online – I Do This for the Money, Prestige, and Power. Said No Librarian Ever., Bobbi Newman (who runs the blog solo á la Librarian's Commute and Distant Librarian) discusses issues of Internet authorship.  Where Distant Librarian seems interested in new media and the DIY culture of makers, Newman is interested in issues of attribution and literacy.  Her posts appear to come sporadically sometimes as frequently as three in a week and sometimes with a gap as long as two weeks.  Her posts are short (3 to 5 paragraphs).
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5. David Lee King also posts solo.  He appears to update the blog every few days.  As you might imagine, one man with frequent updates tends to write short posts or upload short videos.  His posts are highly link heavy -- in stark contrast to Librarian's Commute.  His link-happiness alone suggests how web-centric his blog is.  A recent post, Starbucks Cards and Libraries -- Would it Work?,
considers free download cards and whether or not libraries could use them to raise awareness of sites like Project Gutenberg.   His blog seems very much about brainstorming ideas and trying to spread them.  He seems interested developing online communities and promoting online resources -- particularly those which are already free (these are the ones that much more easily develop online communities and promote access).
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While I enjoy the journalistic quality of In the Library with the Lead Pipe, it does go somewhat against my online reading.  I have a tendency to interface with the web with a short attention span.  Perhaps it's a kind of hyper-link knowledge.  The web offers so much breadth that I find when I'm online, I want to jump from idea to idea.  It would feel more natural to me to read In the Library on an e-reader, so I could find a comfortable seat and hold it in my hands -- perhaps web browsing on a tablet would be very different (I haven't tried it).  This means that for me the shorter posts are easier (as a reaction to this I've chosen to break this post into clear sections separated by lines).  The ones I liked best on my superficial readings are The Librarian's Commute and David Lee King.  I find these sites particularly engaging because of the dialogue each author strikes up with their audience.  I think it makes the most sense to have a blog develop a sense of community.  Both authors seem to suggest their readers think about or try new things and report back.  I didn't really find a particular focus more engaging -- perhaps because each of these sites deals with things I'm interested in or concerned with.
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I chose to subscribe to Public Libraries, NYPL Wire, and San Jose Public Library.  While I love academic libraries and the amazing breadth they offer (I just went to Shields at UC Davis yesterday, partly for an assignment, but mostly because I wanted to start reading the Anthology of Concrete Poetry put together by Emmett Williams in the 60s; it's not easily available online or at the public libraries nearby.  I don't have lending privileges, but that just means I have an excuse to explore the library and find interesting places to site and read), the reason I want to become a librarian is because of the public service aspects of the public library.  I chose these, then, because I hoped they'd deal with pertinent public library issues -- I chose San Jose because that's where the SLIS program is; I chose NY Public because it's sort of the benchmark for an urban public library.

On Public Libraries every post, dating back to June, is about ebooks.  The "about" section of their site indicates that their web presence dates back to the 1997; it also indicates a list of libraries who they serve.  Most of the posts seem to be about Amazon.com.  The authors deliver fire and brimstone sermons about the dangers of the e-tailer.  I won't argue that Amazon's goals run counter to many libraries' goals.  It feels a bit like preaching to the choir. 

NYPL Wire is a great, concise blog.  The posts are small blurbs promoting awareness about libraries or library content or upcoming events at NYPL.  Today for "Flashback Friday," they posted the album cover for R.E.M.'s Best of the IRS Years.  It's a kinetic, eye-catching album cover.  There is a small note about how even though R.E.M. has broken up, you can listen to their album.  There is a link to the library's Overdrive account, where you could borrow the album.  By far, the most common posts are quotations from famous authors about how wonderful libraries are.  It's quick, fun, and colorful.

San Jose Public Library appears to have filled my RSS reader with updates on what has entered their catalog -- video recordings, sound recordings electronic resources, etc.  It doesn't appear  to be a blog in any traditional sense -- with the exception that they allow RSS subscriptions.  It's potentially useful to know what resources the library is adding, but it's overwhelming to see every single source.  I'm not entirely sure what the intentions of this RSS subscription are.  I sort of doubt that it is intended for the general public.

Of the three sites, NYPL Wire offers the most best practices of library blogging by far.  It's fun, frequent, and colorful.  Its posts -- like the R.E.M. one -- remind you that libraries are about more than books.  They approach libraries in a playful way, making it seem like hanging out in the library is great fun.  They also do a great job of choosing compelling or intriguing pictures to promote their upcoming events.  I think, if done correctly, an update about what items the library has just added could be quite useful.  It would make more sense though if it could be catered to a patron's interests.  If they tagged authors or genres or formats that they wanted updates about, it would be a lot more useful.  I think what makes a blog successful is an upbeat tone, blurb-like posts, great pictures, and frequent updating.  (Basically, everything this blog isn't.)

In brief: NYPL Wire is a kind of paradise...which reminds me of a wonderful picture a friend took of my wife and I at the Denver Library on our recent trip:

The quotation reads: "I had always imaged paradise as a kind of library -- Jorge Luis Borges"  Apologies for pulling a funky smile.