OK it is official, I hate WordPress. It just deleted the most brilliant post ever… here I will try to recreate it. Grrr… forgot my own copy/paste advice.
Wow, what a difference library blogs make to a homepage or a marketing strategy. The GSU subject specific blogs with XML feeds may not attract tons of users, but those who do subscribe would become more informed and therefore more concerned patrons. I’m not a big fan of their Flickr photos though, they look boring. I can’t wait to see how some libraries are making use of Flickr in a later section. I totally enjoyed the Madison-Jefferson County Public Library YourSpace blog, mostly for its good use of cheese, and I totally think I would visit it as a YA. However, I suppose the librarian-wannabe crowd is not/has never been the hardest market for libraries to win over! And I love what Western Springs Historical Society has done with blogging, and the interactive map to find homes is the greatest part. I would like to see more captions with the photos, as would a few people who submitted comments. Finally, the Ann Arbor District Library homepage makes use of the typical blog format, but it is unique that they have made the entire homepage basically a blog. It looks clean and professional to me – I like it.
Because I appear to be your partner in rants I will continue to indulge you with my shared frusteration with wordpress! I just realized that on your template you can only see the number of comments or link to the comments of an old post by clicking on the post and bringing it up on its own page. From your main page you can only see the comments/add a comment option for the most recent post! I just left a comment on your “On Starting a Library Blog” post but you can’t view it from the main page or click on the comments button! To add salt to the wound I have also realized that I am not able to (or am not wise enough to figure out how to) hyper link to anything a site, or my previous comment in the comment box!
Okay I think that’s it for the rant! Otherwise I think you did a rather good job of re-creating your brilliant post! I agree with your point on the Flickr photos on the GSU site, not much going on there to keep me going back, but I did really like the subject specific blogs and am not opposed to the idea of not attracting tons of users, personally I would prefer, in that envirionment, to keep the subject specific blogs to a subject intense audience anyway
P.s. I also now recommend copying all comments before hitting submit! Earlier I lost a good portion of my comment
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has accidentally deleted their own post before managing to actually post it. I thought maybe it was just me. But have you done it three times whithin a five minute span or am I the only one who can claim that level of consistency?
Hi Heather –
Sorry to hear about your WordPress difficulties.
You make a good point re: the GSU – it doesn’t appear to have a really high level of participation. I think in situations like this there is a distinction to be made between participation (i.e. active ussage where users versus passive usage where users simply refer to the site for resources).
How do you judge the success of a blog like GSU’s by the number of active users (bloggers) or the number of passive users? I dunno… I guess it’s probably something a librarian might need to consider when reporting on the success of a new initiative or existing service.